Kyle's Wisdom

Fame and Tawny Kitaen

2012-04-09T22:46:00.000-04:00

"Fame is very big and very visible professional success. It is the key to the good side of life's velvet ropes. For those who win it, society will grant them wealth, power, access, recognition, and other tools to live an extraordinary life" - Jay Jessup

I found this quote on the front of a book recently while looking for the definition of the word "fame". Obviously, this is not an actual definition, but it does give you a clear understanding of what fame can do for a person. To paraphrase, fame gives you special things that an average person wouldn't have, because you are really good at something.

I find it interesting when I mention a famous actor to a friend, and they have no idea who I am talking about. Imagine mentioning someone like Tom Hanks to a buddy, and they don't know who he is. Does that make Tom Hanks less famous, or is my friend just ignorant? I say neither. I came to the conclusion that fame, like most other concepts of value, is relative to the perceiver. Since that is true, then why are people ever considered famous in the first place?

I want to share with you what I have been calling "The Tawny Kitaen Effect". For those of you who are not familiar with Tawny Kitaen, I will share this music video with you.

Let me give you a quick synopsis of her life so far. She was a rather poor actress/model wannabe, who was conveniently dating a soon-to-be rock star in high school. She eventually hooked up with yet another rock star, who whored her out to the hungry eyes of the 80s prepubescent male population through the wonders of MTV. Her career slowly dissolved into pathetic variety shows, failed remakes, and eventually she was arrested for drug posession. Now where is she? On a reality show hosted by Dr. Drew called "Celebrity Rehab".

She was, by far, one of the most attractive girls in the 80s... amazing legs and a smile that could light up a room. I'm sure many a tissue was sacrificed in her name by thousands of pimple-faced worshippers. But now, she is a pathetic shell of her former self, and has resorted to airing her dirty laundry, just for a paycheck.

What's wrong with that? Some might say, "Well, that is just the price you pay when you are famous." or "I'm sure she's had such an amazing life and that it was all worth it." Huh?

How can anyone rationalize her current status by simply canceling it out by her previous success? I never understood the concept of "Live Fast, Die Young". Billy Joel wrote a song about it, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and a few dozen others actually lived it. We hold these people as idols of eternal youth, forever young and forever famous. Why? Because they all died before they could become the disasterous messes they all were destined to become.

Tawny has the unfortunate experience of having lived beyond her fame. Had she died at 27, we would look back at her with fond memories of that flowing white dress, and doing the splits on the hoods of cars. But she didn't die. She just slowly destroyed herself. Let's consider the alternative to her fame. She was a pretty girl. She might have had some natural talents in other areas of life, such as cooking or writing. She might have been able to meet a nice boy, settle down, raise a family, and live the middle class dream. She may have been able to have a long productive life with many personal accomplishments and a feeling of personal accomplishment that many of us strive for. But... she didn't. She found value in the concept of fame, and traded the chance of a normal life for the appeal of notoriety and the lime light. I wonder if someone had shown her the outcome of her choices if she would make the same choices.

Let's bring the lottery into the equation. Recently, there was an absurd lottery amount of several hundred million dollars. Why would anyone want that? Imagine having so much money that you don't know what to do with it. I'm sure that most of you have it all planned out. Travel the world, build a huge mansion, feed the hungry, whatever. While it's fun to dream about that alternate reality, consider the consequences to that amount of money. Would your children ever appreciate the value of a day's work? Would you friends and family be able to interact with you without picturing a huge dollar sign above your head? What about gifts from others? How do you buy a gift for someone who already can buy anything they want? And the worst part, everyone would KNOW that you have that money. The level of fame, whether good or bad, would prevent you from having any level of privacy. Imagine not being able to go to the mall or a movie without people approaching you constantly with their hands outstretched, or a camera scrutinizing your every move.

Tawny exemplifies the problem with fame, but there are plenty of others out there that are slowly and inevitably approaching the same fate. Paris Hilton and the Kardashians are just modern day Tawny Kitaens. They are famous for no reason at all, and the world allows it. Why? Because we love to watch the mighty fall. We artificially inflate their fame, simply to watch them destroy themselves. There are television shows on right now whose sole purpose is to show us how much fame has destroyed these peoples' lives. Pathetic.

Andy Warhol introduced us to the concept of "15 Minutes of Fame". I wonder if he was being cynical or sincere when he said that. Today, as a result of the internet, everyone has the opportunity to be heard by the whole world at once. The idea that this article could be read by millions of people is a very real possibility... or not. As a result of my own personal internet endeavours, I have gained a small level of notoriety in certain circles. Am I famous? No. I do not produce my internet content to raise myself up in the publics' eyes. I do it to benefit the communities that I belong to, and for a sense of personal accomplishment. I do not want fame. I am not special.

It's unfortunate, but the world does not see how fame can destroy lives. Just like the story of "The Monkey's Paw", there is going to be consequences to disturbing fate. Nobody on this planet is meant to be more important than anyone else. I don't care if you are the Pope, a life saving doctor, the president of a bankrupt country, or a soldier standing at the front line of an impossible war... all lives should be valued equally. Every person should see value in themselves and should not need validation by others. I wrote this, not to be published, not to become famous, but to share my views of the world. That is good enough for me.

But if someone DOES want to publish this, call me. We'll do lunch.

Welcome!

2011-10-21T21:03:00.000-04:00

To those of you who are coming from MSNBC, I welcome you. If you find the Rapture Dad stuff funny, I encourage you to take moment and read some of my other blog entries. You may be equally entertained.

More Rapture Dad Rapturebomb Pics

2011-05-28T22:03:00.002-04:00

Rapture Dad Meme Pics

2011-05-24T13:18:00.009-04:00

Rapture Dad now has his own twitter account.

Follow him at @RaptureDad

Check out the pics:

Rapture Dad

2011-05-24T10:20:00.003-04:00

It's intriguing to find out that a silly photo you took with your kids has become an internet "thing". When Gizmodo decided that it would be fun to photo bomb the Rapture on May 21, 2011, I decided to participate. Now, it seems as if the sad fate of the known infamous Rapture Dad has been born.

I'm Really Tea'd Off

2011-02-23T15:08:00.005-05:00

A pet peeve (or pet hate) is a minor annoyance that an individual identifies as particularly annoying to him or her, to a greater degree than others may find it. – Wikipedia.

I’m going to start this blog with a very brief botany/beverage lesson.

Tea is the product of processing leaves from the Camellia sinensis plant using a variety of methods, and then pouring hot or boiling water over it. The oil from the processed leaves then incorporates into the water and creates an aromatic and slightly bitter beverage. There are several methods of processing the leaves, which produces several varieties, such as white, yellow, green, oolong, and the most common, black tea. Other teas, such as “herbal” teas, are not really teas at all, since there is no presence of Camellia sinensis. Tea can be served in a variety of ways, the most popular in the United States being “Iced” tea.

This is where my gripe begins…

I have, on numerous occasions, enjoyed a nice dinner out with my family. And by family, I mean the whole gang, Mom, Dad, sister, brother-in-law, wife, kids, dogs, etc. My family usually takes up that big round table in the corner of a restaurant. You know, the empty one that you always stare at when you’re waiting for your two person booth for an hour. I always feel sorry for the waitress who gets to serve us, since we are such a “boisterous” lot.

The first request is our drink choice, which varies among my family members. We order root beer for the kids, some form of raspberry tea for Mom and sis, and Coke for the rest, except me. I usually order an iced tea.

Using the definition above, I expect that if I order an “iced tea”, that I would receive a water based beverage that has been run over crushed, dried Camellia sinensis leaves, and served over ice. However, this is almost never the case. I almost always have to predicate my order with “…and no lemon please.” I understand that it is common to garnish iced tea with a wedge of lemon, but I personally do not have a taste for lemon in my tea. It’s easy enough to remove the lemon if it’s dangling from the edge of the glass, but please don’t submerge it into my tea, letting loose all of its pulpy invaders and inevitable seed plugs for my straw. Plus, I can only imagine the journey that lemon went through prior to tainting my drink. I always picture a greasy fat man in the back of the kitchen, picking a lemon off the floor from behind the garbage can, wiping his nose from the crook of his elbow to the tip of his index finger, and then cutting a wedge with a rusty knife and tossing it in my tea. I know, that seems awfully extreme, but I’ve heard stories, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

So the drinks finally come out and I take a long draw from my straw...

“Excuse me, waitress?”

“Yes sir. What do you need?”

“Umm… why does my iced tea taste like Kool-Aid?”

“What do you mean?”

“My tea tastes sweet. It’s not supposed to be sweet, it’s iced tea.”

“Oh, well you didn’t specify ‘unsweet’, so I brought you ‘sweet’ tea.”

“Why would you do that? Why do I have to specify ‘unsweet’?”

BLANK STARE

Someone please explain this to me. There seems to be a growing trend of “sweet” tea taking over as the norm. I am fully aware that in the southern states, it is much more common for people to order sweet tea. I’ve been to the south, and they always ask you “sweet or unsweet?” There is no assumption, and there shouldn’t be one. If OHIO wants to start including itself in the southern states, then at the very least, they should ASK me if I want sweet or unsweet.

And what exactly does “unsweet” mean? Why would you use such an absurd adjective to denote a style of beverage? How many blank stares would I get if I ordered an “unsalty” iced tea. It seems like asking for an unsalty iced would be an equally correct description of what I desire. “Unbitter” iced tea would be ridiculous since tea is always bitter in its natural state. It SHOULD be denoted as “tea” or “sweet tea”. If you order "sweet tea", you get sweet tea; if you order "tea", you get tea with nothing in it.

Imagine for a moment if other areas of our food had the same problem.

“Waitress! There is cinnamon all over my apple sauce.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t say you wanted ‘uncinnamon’.”

“...and what the hell is all over my fries?”

“That’s poutine. Did you want your fries ‘unpoutine’?”

(Poutine is a Canadian dish consisting of French fries covered with cheese curds and brown gravy.)

Like I said before, I have no problem taking a wedge of lemon off the side of my glass, but it is physically impossible to undiffuse sugar from my iced tea. I would at least like the courtesy of being asked instead of them assuming that if I order tea, that I want it sweet.

The other thing that grind my gears is when my iced tea comes out and there is NO ICE. That means one of two things, either the waitress is an idiot and didn’t put enough ice in my glass, or she let it sit for 10 minutes before bringing it out to me. Both means that you suck as a waitress.

I don’t want people to think that I am some sort of over picky ass who waitresses loathe to get. It’s not like I have ridiculous requests like ordering liver & onions and telling them to hold the onions. It’s not like I am ordering a three bean chili, but I only want two of the three beans. It’s not like I’m ordering a bowl of vegetable soup without the carrots or celery. I am asking for something very simple. Get some tea leaves, pour hot water over it, dump it into a glass full of ice, and DON”T PUT ANY SUGAR IN IT!

Now I'm thirsty.

♫ You must have been a beautiful baby...or not.

2010-10-02T23:27:00.007-04:00

♫ Does your mother realize
The stork delivered quite a prize
The day he left you on the family tree?
Does your dad appreciate
That you're merely supergreat
The miracle of any century? ♫
-Bing Crosby, singer, songwriter, optimist.

So...I just had a baby. Not me personally, although I'd like to think that I had a big part in it. And by big part, I mean...well, you get the idea.

This is my fourth child, so a lot of this was very routine for me. Check in, sit in room, wait for baby, etc. My wife and I have this pretty much down to a science. As a matter of fact, we were so comfortable this time around, we had a fun time scrutinizing the entire event from a more candid perspective.

A few quick things and then I'll get to my main point. First off, I find it very humorous how much attention the hospitals give to making the mother comfortable during the birth. The birthing room was massively spacious and extremely luxurious. There was actually a couch with a fold out double bed in our room. I guess that is if you decide you want to start working on the next baby right away. Keep in mind that I'm talking about the delivery room, the room you actually give birth in. This is not the room you stay in through the night. No, after the baby is born, they move you into a teeny tiny room. In that room is a really old fold out chair that is about as comfortable as a sleeping bag full of marbles...and it barely fits in there. I had to move it parallel to my wife's hospital bed just so it would fold out completely. And once it was fully expanded, there was no room to walk around it. Needless to say, there wasn't much sleep happening on my end.

The other quick point I wanted to make was regarding the food. FYI to the men out there who may be having a child in the future, there is a wonderful room called the "Nourishment Center" that is LOADED with all sorts of food, just for YOU! Sure, they bring Mommy a nice tray of food every couple of hours, and the baby is "tapping the keg" when its time for her to eat, but what about you? Dads get ignored when it comes time for a feeding. But the Nourishment Center is a convenient little treasure trove located over by the nurse's station that becomes your own personal banquet room. They had bagels, danishes, eight types of juice, turkey sandwiches, soup, crackers, etc. I was very pleased. Hell, I even found ice cream in the freezer. The only problem was the odd looks that I kept getting from the nurses each time I walked by. Even though I was told that this stuff was for the me to take as I wish, I still felt a little self-consious each time I walked by with a stack of bagels and a pocket full of graham crackers. Luckily, they seem to rotate out every couple of hours, so I would just peer out at the desk, and when I saw a fresh batch of nurses, it was time for another trip to the fridge for a sammich and a Good Humor bar.

Now to get to my main point. Once the baby is born, you have a revolving door of nurses and doctors and whatnot coming in and out of your room all day and night. You end up having the exact same conversation with everyone of them.

"Congratulations on your new baby!"
"Thanks."
"So, what's her name?"
"Cassie."
"Oh, that is such a great name, and she is sooo cute!"

It's the last sentence that struck a chord with me. Every single one of them responded with "She's so cute" and "What a great name." It was starting to sound like a broken record. I mean, What if it wasn't? What if you had an ugly baby and named it something freaky stupid? Would they still respond this way?

I stopped taking stock in their opinion of my child and her name after this dawned on me. It would be very improbable that a nurse would come in, see a baby, and say,

"Oh wow....gosh...that's a...butt ugly baby."

followed by

"You really named her that? Man, do you hate all kids, or just this one?"

I was really tempted to start answering the name question with something ridiculous, just so I could provoke a different response from one these people. Just once I wanted to say,

"Well, we wanted to give her a unique name with a really deep meaning, so we named her 'Ravine'"

I can only imagine that the fake smiles and forced admiration go away quickly when these people go home and they share with their husbands/wives stories of all the ugly babies with ridiculous names.

Whatever. Like I said before, my wife and I had a much more cynical perspective of the birthing process this time around, and had a fun time with it. Despite my petty qualms about a few pieces of the process, this was a textbook delivery with a beautiful, well named result.

"The pen is mightier than the...Damn, I'm out of ink"

2010-08-16T18:18:00.004-04:00

I spent 7 years of my life working in an office supply store, and I consider myself to be a bit of a "Pen Snob". A Pen Snob is someone who not only has a strong preference for a certain type, style, size of pen...but is also highly disgusted when he has to use anything other than HIS pen.

During my 31 years on this planet, I have determined that traditional "ink" is much better than the newly popular "gel" pens. The gel smears and, to me, writing with them feels unnatural. Give me a good old-fashioned ball-point ink pen any day over a fancy smooth stick gel glide pen. I am particularly fond of Zebra Brand pens, as they are not only ball-point ink, but they are ridiculously reliable and very hard to break. I've often thought that I would get an expensive Cross pen one day, but Cross doesn't make a "click" model, which happens to be yet another crtieria that my pen snobbery requires.

Why am I telling you this?

Since my tastes cater to strong, reliable pens, and the fact that I worked in an office supply store for so long, I've used my share of pens. In fact, I have probably written with thousands of pens in my life. But today, I experienced a first. My pen ran out of ink...while I was writing something. It wasn't just clogged either. I confirmed that I had truly used all of the ink.

It surprised the hell out of me. It actually RAN OUT of ink. I used it all. It's gone. And I was the ONLY one who used this pen. It's not like this pen was publicly available, it was just me. I used this pen every day to jot down the most random of notes. Sometimes it was a name, or a number; other times, it was a to-do or a reminder. It has been the only pen I have used every day at my desk, and now it's empty.

You may be thinking, "Who cares? We've all gone through plenty of pens." Right, but how many of them did YOU, and only YOU, use up completely? I think back at the thousands of pens that I have used throughout my life, and I cannot think of a single one which I emptied, all by myself, from beginning to end. Sure, there have been pens that have run out of ink, but they have always been someone else's pen and I just inherited it or found it in a drawer. I'm talking about a pen that I bought, and used, without anyone else using it. I am solely responsible for "consuming" this product in its entirety. I have pens at home that I have owned for years, and have never gotten even close to using them up.

This is profound in my opinion. It has taken me this long to fully understand how amazing the function of writing can be. Imagine the amount of resources that were spent just to bring the paper, the pen, and its precious ink, all to my desk. Thousands of people, and tons of complex machinery have come together to create the miracle that I am looking at on my desk right now.

Oh, and the last thing I wrote with my pen...

The word "poop".

Awkward Social Situation #17

2010-07-23T01:42:00.003-04:00

Folks, it’s time once again for another episode of "Awkward Social Situations"!!!

This is the part of the blog where we examine a seemingly innocent interaction between two or more people, and then laugh at the bizarre and uncomfortable circumstances that ensue. Let's take a look at today's situation.

A.S.S. #17

"The Stalled Conversation"

The Scenario: Peter is casually making his way through the hallways of his office building when he runs into his co-worker Warren. Warren is a bit younger, and can be very hyper at times. He and Warren greet each other in their typical fashion and begin to walk together while having a conversation about a recent news story. They both seem to be very passionate about the topic and the conversation becomes in depth and relatively detailed.

The Awkward Moment: As they make their way down the hall, it never occurs to either of them that they have the same destination. That's right. Both Peter and Warren are heading toward the bathroom to "test the plumbing". While it is a common occurrence for all three stalls to be occupied at one time, you are typically unaware and unconcerned about the identity of your "stallmates".

They turn the corner and approach the bathroom door.

Possible Outcome #1: Peter realizes that Warren might find it appropriate to continue their enthralling conversation during their respective movements. This upsets Peter to a point where he is willing to "suck it up" and return to the bathroom at a later point when he may do his business incognito.

Possible Outcome #2: Peter accepts the fact that his business is a natural act and he should not be afraid to complete his transaction in the audible range of his colleague. Even if Warren does decide to continue the conversation, at least Peter does not have to worry about cramping or possible colon damage.

Actual Outcome: Peter pretends that his phone vibrated in his pocket, stops dead in his tracks and tells Warren to go on ahead and he'll "catch up with him later." He actually starts typing a text message that he will erase after Warren is out of range. Peter will then proceed to go down one floor and attempt to use the restroom down there. Unfortunately, once Peter arrives at the lower floor restroom, he discovers that the custodian is currently cleaning it. He now has to either return to his desk, feeling uncomfortable and gassy, or he can go down another floor and try his luck at another restroom. Either way, Peter is slowly wasting his break time, while Warren has already completed his own transaction and is actually waiting at Peter's desk for him to return so they can continue their conversation.

Conclusion: Next time, Peter should attempt to plan out his route to the bathroom a bit more strategically, and try to avoid his co-workers who may ruin an otherwise routine event. Peter's other option would be to train his bowels to only evacuate before or after work. Either way, it is Peter who finds this situation awkward, not Warren. You see, Warren actually never needed to poop. He was only going to the bathroom to wash his hands after eating an unusually messy orange. Warren is actually very aware of Peter's apprehension and thinks it’s funny as hell that he prevented Peter from being able to do his duty when he chooses.

In other words, Peter is a tool...and Warren is an ass.

And this concludes this session of "Awkward Social Situations"!

Indiana Kyle and the Temple of Porcelain Thrones.

2010-01-18T20:01:00.003-05:00

“Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.” - Lewis Mumford

I’m sure not everyone will know who Lewis Mumford is, but I couldn’t resist a quote about toilets from a famous American historian/writer, especially since he was born in Flushings, New York. For the rest of you, here is a quote from someone a little more well known to my readers.

“You know an odd feeling? Sitting on the toilet eating a chocolate candy bar. “ – George Carlin

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will be well acquainted with my strange fascination with the scatological sciences. Over the last couple of years, I have been attempting to find a “regular” harmony between my body, my waste products, and the universe. The intention of this blog is to map out my search…no, my quest, to find the perfect environment in which to do my business.

Lets begin with requirements. Obviously, the first thing to consider is whether or not a bathroom has, literally, a “pot to piss in.” This can be either a regular toilet/stall setup, a line of urinals, or even in the most extreme of circumstances, a trough. Being male, the need for a urine depository device is not as important as other things, but it will lend itself to a more pleasant overall experience.

Next and most importantly, are the stalls. I am the type of person that will not hesitate to use a public restroom. When I have to go, wild horses will not stop me. Not that they ever have tried…okay, the more that I think about it, wild horses probably would be able to stop me. But I digress. A bathroom stall design and its contents will decide whether or not your “transaction” will be an easy and successful one. Lets look at some of the features of a bathroom stall.

The size. There seem to be three common sizes of stalls. The first is the smallest compartment known to man that can contain a 35 lb. piece of porcelain and an average size human being. The key word in that last sentence is “average.” I am much smaller than I was a year ago, but I still fall on the heavy side of the scale. When I sit down on a toilet and my knees hit the door, that stall is too small. The second size is what I refer to as the “Dumbass Design” stall. This is a stall that would have been a perfect size, but due to the odd positioning of the toilet, my leg is rubbing up against the right wall, but I can literally stretch my left leg out fully and not hit the left wall. This is when I usually employ the side sitting method and just deal with the awkward feeling of having my ass not conform to the shape of the seat. Finally, there is the best size of all, the handicap stall. It provides room to move around, ample space for your legs, even a handy bar on each side to grab onto during those tougher moments. I imagine that all of the stalls in heaven are handicappers. Now before I get a barrage of hate mail about using the handicap stall, lets take a look at something:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgedBRXw7fY

You can see the humor in using the handicap stall. I don’t believe anyone has ever gotten a ticket for parking their ass on a handicap toilet.

The Door. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to poop in public and having people looking at you. Depending on the height and position of the stall door, you run in to major opportunities for others in the bathroom to sneak a peak at your business. The ones that I hate the most are when the stalls are directly in front of the sinks, and everyone who is looking at their reflection in the mirror are secretly staring at you through the gap in the door, and watching you pinch one off. The worst I seen so far though, are the stalls with NO DOOR AT ALL. This is usually found in public park restrooms. For some reason, the park board feels that their patrons have no need for privacy, and therefore can forego the cost of doors and use that money for more important things, like providing little plastic baggies for when your dog poops in their grass.

The Quantity. I can’t remember the last time I saw a correct ratio of urinals to stalls. Maybe some of those huge, newly built cinemas have the best lineup. I can see the value in an ample supply of urinals, considering the unspoken man law that dictates an “every other urinal” approach. Can we do this with stalls? Nothing is stranger than sitting down and making brown, when some other goofball takes possession of the stall next to yours, and shares last night’s burrito buffet with you. Maybe soundproof, and potentially smellproof walls would make the most sense here.

Toilet Height. I had to use the restroom once at my daughter’s preschool, and I basically had to hug my knees to sit on the toilet. I was really impressed with how the school catered to the younger crowd, but it left me feeling a bit crampy. These toilets were so small that I actually flushed a few times during the process, knowing full well what kind of mess a clogged toilet of that stature would cause. The contrast to this would be the toilets that are so high, that you feel like your jumping out of a monster truck when you’re done. Nothing is more dehumanizing that being a grown adult whose feet are dangling three inches above the ground while you are trying to go #2.

Cleanliness. I understand that having something be deemed “public” means that you have way too many variables to deal with in regards to cleanliness. People from all walks of life will be sharing in your experience. Everyone from that homeless bum who hasn’t had a shower since the Great War, to college kids who just discovered how a beer bong works. Of course, nothing beats the Arby’s in Springboro. I’ve been in there three times to use their facilities in the last month. The first time, I went to wash my hands and noticed that they were out of soap and the sink had a funny stain in it. The second time, the soap dispenser was completely broken, and the sink remained nasty and dry. The last time I went in there, the soap dispenser was completely gone, and the only thing in the sink was a sign that previously hung on the door which read, “All employees are required to wash their hands before returning to work.” Hmm… I think we’ll stop going there.

With all of this being said, only once in my life have I found the perfect porcelain throne. It was at a mall in Kentucky, and I have to say that after I was done, I had tears in my eyes. (The tears were from happiness, not from straining too hard.) This bathroom had a bamboo/cabana theme, and the stall doors went all of the way to the ground. The sinks were nowhere near the stalls, and there had to be at least four of them. Every single stall was both spacious and luxurious. The toilet had the correct spacing from each wall, and when I was all done, I had plenty of room to stand up, pull up my pants and tuck in my shirt, without elbowing the walls. To top things off, it was clean. The sinks were spotless, and the mirror didn’t have a single spot on it. This was the Shangri La of bathrooms.

I will continue my quest for the perfect restroom experience. Hopefully, there will someday be a standard of which all public restrooms will adhere. Until then, I will continue to use them, and continue to judge.

Final Score: Kyle -1, Technology - 0

2009-08-20T12:59:00.006-04:00

The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, but not if it’s in the wrong direction.

I, more than anyone I know, have always had a strong faith in technology and where it will lead us. Until now.

Before I proceed with this chaotic tale, I need to give you some background info. My buddy Jeff and I have been carpooling to our new job together for the last six months. Its about a 45 minute drive, thus giving us plenty of time to discuss current events, sports, economics, and other pertinent topics. We actually don’t use the time to discuss these things, instead the topic of conversation usually steers toward more ridiculous subjects. For those of you who are on Facebook, this is where the monkeys with jetpacks idea came from.

On this particular day, we had to drive even further than usual due to training at another facility. On the way home, we noticed some inclement weather was brewing. Instinctively, we turned on a local AM station to get the scoop on the situation. The radio man gave a brief synopsis of the weather status, then directed our attention to the audio feed they were getting from the television weather man.

The TV Weather Guy gave us a thorough explanation of the storm. Well, it would have been thorough if we had been able to see the graph he kept referring to. He continuously made comments like, “If you are over here in this area, look out.” Obviously, he was pointing to it on the map, the map that we could not see because radio just doesn’t work that way. You would think that the radio people would have enough sense to either explain what the TV guy is saying, or not to use an audio feed from a source that requires map visualization to explain the event. Either way, we just laughed at our inability to get valid information from the TV/radio info and drudged on.

We also learned a few new weather related terms. Apparently, there is such a thing as a “wall cloud,” and they can quickly turn into a funnel cloud. Sometimes you’ll just get a “hook echo” which means that a funnel cloud could form around the “wall cloud.” It amazes me that every time a big weather event happens, the news people throw out new terms at us to make themselves sound smarter than we originally thought they were. Its almost as if they feel the need to remind us that this is hard stuff, and their technical knowledge is all that will save us from certain doom. Whether it’s a wall cloud or a hook echo, high wind and rain equals possible tornado. Any idiot knows that.

So getting back to our journey. We saw that our normal highway route was clogged beyond repair, and decided to fire up the good old GPS unit and find an alternate route. It got us off the highway and we trekked through side roads and bypasses, into the great unknown.

According to the GPS, we would get home about 20 minutes later than we normally would. That seems a valid tradeoff considering how long we would have waited in traffic. Also, it’s a GPS, a highly accurate and seemingly flawless piece of technology. Why question what we know to be true?

Well, the GPS was wrong. Dead wrong. What we didn’t realize it that by disabling the highway routes from its menu, it took us on roads that had traffic lights and stop signs. It also didn’t account for the fact that there is no such thing as constant speed on roads with 35 MPH speed limits. It ended up directing us into a pit of despair and taking three times as long as it originally told us. At each light, the time readjusted from its original prediction as if the number had no true meaning at all. Every minute we drove added two minutes to the destination time. We were livid.

We eventually yanked the GPS off the window and through it into the back seat. We made logical decisions on our own and ended up getting to Jeff’s house 30 minutes earlier than the GPS predicted.

The conclusion that we had from this whole debacle was that even though the GPS device is a result of millions of dollars in military satellites, decades of research and development, and a technologically advanced interface, it cannot make logical decisions or give accurate predictions on travel time. These are the two main reasons people purchase these devices. This is a piece of technology that just failed its sole purpose at a time when I needed it the most.

From now on, if I’m stuck in traffic and need an alternate route, I ‘ll just rely on the resource that was always available to me before I had my GPS, I’ll just call my dad.

The Incredible Shrinking Kyle

2009-08-04T11:44:00.010-04:00

Bless me father for I have sinned. It has been 3 months since my last blog.

We decided to go for a walk the other day. Me, my wife, and my three girls headed out after a nice dinner together. It wasn’t a really long walk, just around the neighborhood and back home. About 100 yards from home, my four year old decides that its just too much for her, and wanted to be carried the rest of the way. Shame on us for not putting her in a stroller in the first place.

I picked her up and threw her on my back. As we continued walking, I realized that she was a lot heavier than I had anticipated and she started to weigh me down. By the time we made it home, I was pooped.

I began to consider how amazing this was. This little girl weighs about 30 pounds. Less than half of what I have lost over the last 5 months. I couldn’t imagine what it would have felt like to have two of her strapped to my back while trekking up the hill to my house. It would have killed me. But that IS what I had on me. All that weight that I lost equaled more than two of her. I seriously don’t know how I did it.

For those of you who are unaware, I have been on a diet. Actually, not really a diet, but more of a change of lifestyle. It’s amazing how just a few modifications to my daily routine have made such a difference. I’ve been doing simple things, like eating breakfast, and not going back for thirds on the lasagna. Hell, I don’t even go back for seconds anymore. On top of the eating change, I’ve also added a few changes to my activity, such as walking and light exercise.

So far, I have been successful in my quest to better myself. There have been a few side effects though. For one, none of my clothes fit. I have a hell of a time trying to figure out what to wear to work everyday. I’m sure I look real professional when I have to wear one of my “fat guy” shirts and pants that are cinched up like the top of a potato sack. I did eventually buy a few new shirts and inherited a few from my dad that didn’t fit him anymore.

Another interesting side effect is my balance. For years, my back has had to compensate for the heavy protrusion off the front of me. No, not that. My gut. Now that its all but gone, I believe my back thinks its still there, so I have to try really hard not to stumble when I am moving around quickly.

There have been some good side effects too. I went to an amusement park with my kids earlier this summer, and I could actually pull the bars down to hold me in. I finally got to enjoy a roller coaster without thinking I was going to fly out around a sharp bend. Trust me, if you think roller coasters are scary, try riding them without the proper restraints. There were some rides that prior to my weight loss, I could not get on at all. This is no longer the case.

The icing on the cake for me was this past weekend. One of my cousins was getting married, and this was an opportunity to show off the “new look” to family members who have not seen me in a while. It was fitting that the theme to the wedding was “Disney Princess”, because I felt slightly like the Beast who turned into the Prince. But what should I wear?

My first thought was to try on my old suit. Hmmm. I’ll describe to you how that looked. Go rent the movie “Big” with Tom Hanks, fast forward to the very end when he turns back into a kid and is walking home. That’s me. Damn.

Luckily, my wife has been enjoying herself shopping for clothing for me. I think she’s treating me like a 6 foot Ken doll, except a bit more correct in the anatomy region. I came hope on that Friday before the wedding to discover that she had bought me a new suit, shirt, tie, the whole shebang. It was all black. I tried it on. Wow. Other than the pants, it fit and looked great. We swapped out the pants that night and I was good to go. While I had the whole get-up on, I grabbed my cowboy hat and threw it on. It was perfect. Several Johnny Cash and “Man in Black” jokes were made. But I didn’t care. I loved it.

The day of the wedding, I wore the hat into church, just for the effect, and then put it back in the car. I was content with making a fun entrance, but didn’t want to be annoying. While I was outside putting the hat back in the car, one of my cousins rolled in. I waved to him. He gave me an odd look while he was parking the car. I wasn’t sure why. Later he told me that he had no idea who I was and didn’t recognize me at all. This felt good.

All in all, it was an amazing wedding. The bride looked great, all the men looked dapper in their penguin suits, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. There was drinking, dancing, laughing, drinking, eating, more drinking, and more dancing. A beautiful night. I used to feel self-conscious about being out on the dance floor in front of everyone. I always thought of myself as a giant wrecking ball flying around knocking down the other dancers. Not this time. I was strutting my stuff like I was 17 and back in high school. After the wedding, as I walked out to the car, my suit jacket thrown over my shoulder, a cigarette in my mouth, and my woman on my arm, I felt like a million dollars.

Its not over yet. I will continue on with this trend in my life. I still haven’t quite reached my weight goal, and I still have my smoking to deal with. It’ll happen. I know it will. I had fun at that wedding like I hadn’t had in almost 15 years. It wouldn’t have been that way 5 months ago. That there is enough incentive to continue. When I finally do reach my weight goal, I am going to assemble it all together and create my own weight loss system and put Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers out of business. I’m looking for “testers” if anyone is interested.

I'm not dead yet!

2009-04-22T17:32:00.001-04:00

Time of Death: 11:38am on 4/20/2009

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

-Mark Twain….and now me.

Never in my life have I questioned my mortality. Usually, when a person loses a loved one in an untimely fashion, it makes them evaluate and appreciate their own life a bit more. Up to this point, all of my experiences with death have been natural, meaning that they were not a shock and I was fully prepared for them to happen. Grief for the inevitable is, well…inevitable, but will usually subside once a reasonable period has gone by.

What I experienced on Monday was by no means natural and was definitely a shock. I guess I’ll start with Sunday, April 19, 2009…my 30^th birthday.

All was going well. I had just thrown a bowling ball over 24mph, scored over 100 twice, and had a blast with my family. All that was left to top off the evening was a trip to a restaurant I had never been to, Bennihana’s.

Most of you are probably aware of the set up for this restaurant, but if you are not, let me educate you. Its basically a large group that sits around a grill and you watch the cook prepare your meal with all the glitz and glamour of a circus clown. Flipping spatulas and seasonings around your heads and even launching egg shells into his stereotypical chef hat. You would think that being able to watch the chef prepare your meal would make you confident of its cleanliness and correct preparation. We shall see…

The menu consisted on a few dozen items, of which 99% had the term “Hibachi” in it. I had originally been told from other sources that their menu was rather generic and everything would taste the same. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the variety they offered.

I had it already in my mind that I wanted fish or shrimp, so when my future brother-in-law discovered the “Seafood Diablo” at the bottom of the menu, it sounded like the right choice. It was a spicy noodle meal, and we both decided to order it.

I would like to spend a moment deciphering the name “Seafood Diablo.” I did not take Spanish in high school. However, most would agree that any fifth grader with an above average intelligence who watches enough television would be able to tell you that “Diablo” means “Devil.” Now “Seafood” on the other hand, can have several meanings. According to dictionary.com:

–noun

any edible fish or shellfish from the sea used for food.

Funny how the word “edible” needed to be put in the definition. If a non-edible fish was used for food, I would think that it would not be classified as “food.” I have seen people eat some ridiculous food items, but for the most part, they were at least deemed edible. For example, I’ve actually seen someone eat a breaded deep fried Snickers bar. ‘Nuff said. To say “edible fish” denotes that somewhere out there is a non-edible fish that is being used for food. This is where my experience seems to go awry.

Having reached the 30 year mark without any signs of allergy to anything, I had no reason to be weary of what I ingest. The “seafood” meal that I consumed was absolutely delicious and I even made the comment that it ranks up there in the top 5 meals of my life. It was spicy, but no overbearing. The fish was tender, well cooked, and oh so delectable. I wasn’t exactly sure of what type of fish it was, but that didn’t matter…at the time.

Thanks to the sleuthing skills of my almost brother-in-law, Chef Paul, it was determined that the “seafood” in question was scallops, shrimp, and calamari. Squid tentacles. I don’t believe that I have ever eaten calamari, and now I know that I never will again. Which brings us to Monday morning, 9:00AM.

It was a normal drive to work. Jeff and I were waxing quixotic as usual and we arrived right on time as we normally do. A quick trip to the bathroom and a refill on my coffee, and I was ready to hit my cubical.

Not even 5 minutes at my desk and I started having problems breathing. I gasped for each breath, and of course, was getting slightly nervous. My throat was swelling shut, I could feel my airpipe getting smaller with every inhalation. I recall my mother at one point telling me to put my hands over my head if I am having trouble breathing, so I did that. No help. I was starting to get very scared and went over to Jeff’s cube to get a second opinion. He looked at me and could tell that something was wrong.

“I can’t breathe!” I told him and within 5 seconds I was sitting in Jeff’s cube with at least 5 self-proclaimed experts at my disposal. Being a rookie, I was impressed at how many of my workmates rushed to my aid. Now I was scared, breathless, AND the center of attention.

Ultimately, the group decided that I must be having an allergic reaction and the paramedics were called. They carted me out strapped on a bed with oxygen up my nose. By the time they loaded me up in the ambulance, my face was tingling and my lips felt strange. I could see Jeff following along in my van, chasing the ambulance like a desperate lawyer. I have always been able to count on him to “get my back” in times like this.

At the emergency room, they decided to hook up an IV, and pump me full of steroids and Benedryl to offset the swelling. Within 20 minutes, I was able to breathe better. A lung guy came in and checked me out and said I was alright. They wanted to do a chest x-ray to see if there was anything else, so a gal came and carted me off to another room. This was the first time that day that I died.

After doing the x-ray, the nurse went off to see if it turned out clear and left me in the room laying on my mobile bed. Another nurse came in and saw my bed there and yelled out to my nurse, “Hey, your guy in here, what is his TOD?” at which point I heard a crash and my nurse came running around the way and stuck her head right in my face and said, “Sir, are you okay!?” I said yes and asked her what TOD meant. “Time of Death,” she replied at which point the other nurse says, “Oh God, I am sooooo sorry sir! I meant to say TOA, Time of Arrival.” She was extremely apologetic and I think she was afraid she was going to get yelled at, but I reassured her that this was the one highlight of my day, so far. Its not every day that I get to die and live to tell about it.

Once back in my room, I relayed the recent events to Jeff, which he also found amusing. I thought it was great that they let him back to my room while I was going through this. As I said before, I can always count of Jeff in a time of need, or so I thought.

I had to pee. I sent Jeff out of the room and proceeded to fill up one of those plastic urinal things they had given me. I was proud of the fact that I did not spill or overflow it, because I could definitely see that the potential was there to do so. Now, to get back into bed. I was hooked up to so many cords on my arms that I felt like a marionette. I called Jeff back into the room and as I was getting back into bed, I twisted around and yanked one of the cords out of the monitoring machine. It beeped. A lot. I turned to Jeff. “Dude! Plug me back in. I can’t reach it!” “No way! I’m not touching your plugs!” he replied. “Come on! I’m beeping and I can’t reach it!” “NO! I’m not plugging you back in!”

Eventually he came to his senses and plugged me in. I know now that I cannot rely on Jeff to make sure I stay plugged in. On my deathbed, I do NOT want Jeff there, unless someone else is there too. I have to admit that this brush with death was slightly funnier and less serious than the first.

Eventually the doctor came in and declared that “We are not 100% positive that what you experienced was an allergic reaction, although we cannot rule it out either. Any number of things could have caused this.” Let me do a translation: “We don’t know what the heck happened, so go home and take these pills just in case.”

I took the next day off to rest up and let the medicine do its thing. It did. I am now back at work and everyone was glad to see me up and running again. I am convinced that this was definitely an allergic reaction to calamari, and that the steroids fixed me. After a day rest and half a day of work so far, I am almost back to 100%.

As a side note, I do not regret eating the meal. I really did enjoy myself and thought that the meal was great. Overall, it was a good birthday celebration, but with the world’s worst hangover. This was the first time in my life that I was scared for my life. I think it was fitting that this occurred immediately after I turned 30. I’m no longer that invincible twenty something guy. Now I am an old man that has to watch what he eats and take a little better care of himself.

Thanks to Tracy for starting this whole “Biggest Loser” thing. As a result of this competition, my blood pressure was actually lower than it has ever been when they checked me at the hospital.

Thanks to Paul for being educated in the Culinary Arts. I now know to stop sucking on squid tentacles in my spare time.

Thanks to my mother for thinking she can get to Dayton in 5 minutes from Fairfield.

Thanks to my co-workers for making me feel like I was starring in my own personal episode of “House.”

And of course, thanks to Jeff for finally plugging me back in and being there to taxi my tired butt back home. I owe you a sick day, dude.

Pig and Frog DNA Just Don't Mix

2009-03-20T16:13:00.001-04:00

Its common knowledge that Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy were, at the very least, dating. I think it was implied that there was a bit more than that going on.

Here's my question: Are we to believe that Miss Piggy was intending on bearing Kermit's offspring? What would they look like? Would they be little pink frogs with snouts and curly tails?

I'm sure that this pair-up of lovers was supposed to be a joke. To me, it seems like its more true to life than previously thought. I see unusual couples constantly while I monitor the general public. Fat gals with skinny guys, Huge dudes with beanpole ladies, young with old, I could go on. Its suddenly not taboo to date or marry someone of another stereotype, or "species."

I guess we can all learn something from Miss Piggy and Kermit. Break down those walls of prejudice and date a fatty.

What Would Kermit Do?

RSS-ky Business

2009-03-20T14:59:00.001-04:00

I just realized what an RSS feed is, and that I really wanted one. I then discovered that I already had one through blogger. How cool. This is like needing a shirt to wear tomorrow, washing one, opening the dryer to put the shirt into it and......Hey! there's a clean shirt in here!

Neeto.

BTW, the title of this blog is read as "Risky" Business. Good movie. I highly recommend it.

Blog Disclaimer

2009-03-11T14:28:00.001-04:00

This isn't really a disclaimer, but more of an explanation as to how my blog came into existence. I started screwing around with MySpace blogging and decided that I enjoy sharing my rantings with the world. The only problem was, if you weren't a registered user of MySpace, you couldn't read my blog. I also don't believe that search engines were able to see it either. Someone recommended this site to become more of a public blogger. I signed up for an account, and away we go!

I had one problem. What about all of the fun MySpace blogs that I wrote over the last year, sitting stagnant on a limited view account? I chose to copy them over to this blog, sort of a "Greatest Hits" posting. All blog posts after this disclaimer will be new ones. I think I may still post copies on MySpace as well, but this blog will now be my primary posting site.

In the past, I have put loads of thought into a blog prior to posting. I would write it in Microsoft Word, mull over it, and then copy/paste into my blog. Now, with the "mail in" feature on this site, I can email a blog and it automatically post it. As a matter of fact, I'm posting this entry using this particular feature.

Please enjoy, and feedback is always welcome.

Patrick Swayze isn’t dead yet

2009-03-11T13:19:00.004-04:00

After some deep soul searching and long moments of prayer, I have come to a very important conclusion:

I need to post a blog regarding Patrick Swayze quickly before he kicks it.

Also, I lied about the praying thing, Some people claim that God talks to them, I cant even get him to text message me!

Anyway, Patrick Swayze is dying. Not just a little, but a lot. I mean, this is going to be really ugly. I think it might even be a permanent thing. This isn't going to be one of those fly by night kind of deaths. We're talking about live televised death here. TIME magazine has already put him on the cover, as if his death makes him a more important person.

Seriously, if I was Patrick Swayze, lying in my bed, waiting for death, and someone busts through my door with the lasted TIME, I would be seriously salty. I can just imagine his publicist calling him:

"Oh man, Patrick! You are on fire right now! TIME puts you on the cover and now Leno, Conan, Oprah all want to do interviews. This is great! If only we had known that this would happen, we could have had you die years ago."

Of course, now Tom Cruise is probably jealous and now he'll have to do some crazy alien god video....wait, what? Oh...I didn't know that. Apparently he has already done that a few months ago. See, its all about timing with these things. Like with Patrick Swayze dying right now, it would be a great time to re-release Roadhouse in some sort of Platinum Collectors Edition.

Just be sure that Kevin Smith does the commentary.

Oh well, he will be missed. I'm sure when he finally does die, and they do some crappy video montage of his accomplishments, they'll use that song "I've had the time of my life" as the background music. You just wait, you'll see it, and hopefully you'll remember that it was my idea first. Those TV bastards have no creative imaginations.

Ant's Life

2009-03-11T13:15:00.002-04:00

I read recently that a common black ant has a life expectancy of 3 weeks. If an ant is separated from its colony it will do everything in its power to try and find his way back home. If he spends more than 24 hours away from the colony and does miraculously find his way back, the other ants will not recognize him and they will kill him and feed his body to the queen.

I guess the moral of this story is "Don't lend an ant any money, chances are he isn't going to pay you back."

Reap what you sow.

2009-03-11T13:10:00.004-04:00

Apparently, I do not have the neccessary know-how to be a farmer.

I originally planted 8-10 seeds of corn. Critters in my yard ate most of them before they even had a chance. Survival of the fittest is a cruel gesture when all you are is a dried up piece of corn sitting in some dirt. Squirrels are cute and all, but they really should all just die. I've taken to aiming for them when they run out in front of my car.

Stupid little monsters...

But I digress...I was able to salvage one small sprout and I nurtured it to full stalk status. This being my first time with corn, I wasn't sure what to expect. I learned the hard way that growing said vegetable in a pot is not the smartest idea. Being restricted to a 5 gallon environment, my stalk decided to produce retarded veggies. I'm not sure whether or not to call these "ears" of corn considering they are the size of something that would come out of your "nose." My green thumb ended up being more of a puce color, and my crop was, well..."cropped."

Aw shucks, maybe next time I'll have better luck. Or maybe I should just stick to corny jokes. Then again, you might get tired of getting an ear full. If so, stop stalking me. (I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. I have pills for this, I just don't take them!)

Spatula Revisited

2009-03-11T13:03:00.002-04:00

I alluded to this in a previous blog, so I felt it was time to elaborate.

My wife and I both love to cook. When we discuss all the fun things we have in common, cooking is always high up on the list, along with making fun of people. But, there are some things that we have both agreed on that she should not cook. Pancakes is one of those things. You would think that a relatively intelligent gal like my wife should be able to make something as simple as a pancake, but no. Every time she has tried, we have ended up eating hotdogs and mac ' cheese, and thowing away a huge glob of burnt refuse that once had aspirations of being a batch of pancakes.

So I find myself mixing up another batch of Aunt Jemima's best, when I asked my wife to grab me a spatula. She hessitated, then handed me a kitchen tool that I have seen my mom use millions of times to scrape batter off the walls of a bowl.

"What the hell is this for?"

"You asked for a spatula."

"Thats not a spatula. (grabs what I think is a spatula) This is a spatula."

"That's a flipper. So if this isn't a spatula, then what is it?"

"I don't know, a batter scraper?"

The debate lasted for a while and ended up with us having a much later meal than anticipated. I, of course, went in search of answers in the only place where all information is absolute, the internet. After hours of searching, it is apparent to me that there is no definitive distinction between the batter scraper and the spatula. All of them are considered spatulas, but then some can also be called flippers. I still feel like I haven't received adequate closure on the matter. I leave it up to you, dear readers. Please help me settle this eternal battle of nomenclature. Which is a spatula?

Shopping for Nothing

2009-03-11T13:00:00.002-04:00

My wife and I went shopping the other night. We weren't looking for anything in particular, we we're simply browsing. Its funny how the expectations are so different between men and women when it comes to a shopping experience. My wife, for example, wants to look at every department, even if we don't need anything from it.

"Oh look, they have spatulas on sale."

"Um, honey, we don't need another spatula. We have 30 spatulas at home already."

"But they're on sale. Maybe we should get another one."

"I dont even like the ones we have right now. They are all too flimsy."

"So we'll get a more expensive one and it'll be firmer."

"But if we get one that isn't on sale, then why are we getting it at all!?"

"You just said you wanted one that wasn't so flimsy. Here try this one."

"Its pink and has a dolphin on the handle. Wait, what does that say....'Flipper' on the handle? Jesus, that's just horribly wrong."

Also, my wife and I seem to disagree on the definition of a spatula. But thats another story for another time.

There is one part of shopping that we both do agree on. We both seem to get equally amused at the crap we find sometimes at certain stores. I'm not talking about your Targets and WalMarts, I'm talking about Big Lots and TJ Maxx type of stores. It seems that product rejects are plentiful at seedy establishments like this. These store are where retail failures go to die.

So here are our finds from our recent outing. Note that the pictures are possible due to the lovely technology of my cel phone camera.

Okay, so a simple game like Scrabble suddenly comes in a pirate version. I guess the nice thing about this is using words like "AAAAARG" and finally getting that 50 point bonus for using all your letters AND getting rid of 5 A's at the same time. I wonder if Borders sells a Pirate Scrabble Dictionary.

Next:

Isn't this game called Kerplunk? I seem to recall playing this as a child. But I think it was round, not square. Someone should get sued for this. Imagine if your friends came over to play when you were a kid and you got out this game and set it up and one of your buds says, "Dude, what happened to your Kerplunk game?" What kind of reply could you give that wouldn't ruin your life forever? "Oh yeah, my mom couldn't afford the 8 dollars for the real game from a reputable store. Instead, she paid 6 dollars for the knock-off version, thus crushing any hope of 8 yr. old coolness."

On to the next one:

I know, I'm covering up part of the title to supplement my own feindish ranting. What you don't know is that the word I am covering is "Hard" Anyway, its my wife's hand. She's the one that thought this one was so funny. Not that I disagree.

Another book:

After doing extensive research, I cannot find one single documented case of hippos going berzerk or even being slightly rowdy in any way shape or form. As a matter of fact, there is no valid reason to even consider the hippo as able to become enraged or irritable. I believe that the author, might be suffering from hippophobia.

Edit: Hippophobia is actually the fear of horses, which makes absolutely no sense at all. There actually is no official term for a fear of hippos, so we will revisit that subject at a later date.

And finally:

Some people consider my fascination with Bratz as slightly neurotic, but I stand firm in my belief that these toys should NOT exist. This fine example above just solidifies my stance on the matter. This doll has its mouth formed into a "blowing" position along with being dressed like a 5 dollar whore. Seriously, do I need to go any further with this one? Also, this is the second time TJ Maxx has supplied me with a devil spawn toy. In case you missed the first one, its located here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtqPXK5b4AUGU5U2spHI_4

I will continue my search for the bizzare and pathetic during my shopping escapades with my wife. I find that its the best way to get through some of the more painful outings.

BTW, we passed on the "Flipper", but did manage to buy a pink, giraffe print broom. It was on sale.

I slept with an Asian Woman

2009-03-11T12:56:00.002-04:00

I understand that living in Cincinnati has given me a small scope of the universe. During my travels, I discovered that there are loads of foreigners here in America.

At the airport in Washington, DC, I felt very out of place. I believe that I was the only English speaking person in the entire airport. I got on my plane, and was forced to sit next to an Asian woman and her husband. This was a decently long flight, so I opted to try and sleep though it. An hour into the flight, I woke up to find that the woman sitting next to me had the same idea to sleep and had rested her head on my shoulder. Normally, I would have pushed her away, not liking unfamiliar human contact. But the plane was cramped as it is, and I didn't want to make enemies so far up in the air. I decided to make the best of it and snuggled up next to her and fell back asleep. It was actually a decent nap.

Although, I did smell like fried rice for the rest of the day.

Terror at 20,000 feet: Kyle Style

2009-03-11T12:34:00.002-04:00

"You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone."

In 1983, Twilight Zone the Movie was all the buzz. The movie was comprised of three classic eispodes that were remade. One episode, Terror at 20,000 feet, was redone starring John Lithgow. Those of us who remember the tv episode know that William Shatner was the original guy who played the part.

Sitting on the plane getting ready for takeoff for the first time, many random thoughts entered my mind. One was Alanis Morrisette's song Ironic. The other was looking out the window only to see a gremlin on the wing. I tried to picture what it would look like.
How weird would it be to see a gremlin on the wing of a plane?

Okay, that wasn't the type of gremlin you were thinking of. But still, it would be a sight to see. The city you see below is Dallas. Its funny, as we got higher and higher above the clouds, It almost seemed like we were too high. Like somehow being above the clouds was a dirty sin or something. In the bible, the people of Babel were punished for trying to build a tower to heaven. Now, we can go as high as we want without any repercusion. Maybe someday we'll even go into space!

Turbulance. Nobody told be about this crap. Randomly, pockets of air force the plane to drop or rise feet at a time in the air. Major thoughts of gremlins every time this happened. Actually, as I peered out the window at the cloud masses below us, I pictured a Care Bear getting sucked into the jet engine evertime the plane got bumpy. This brought a calming feeling to my gut.

Of couse I used the bathroom. Anyone who knows my love for novelty should expect nothing less than for me to take a leak in the wierdest place I can. I was on several different planes during my trip, but one thing is consistent thoughout all of them, the bathrooms are not built for people like me. If for some reason I felt it necessary to attempt a bowel movement in one of these things, it would have been ugly. I'm not sure how people find a way to have sexual acts in them. I guess I skipped that page in the Kama Sutra.

The funniest part of the bathroom experience was the flush. Where did it go? You know when your standing outside and a drop of water hits you and you think its about to rain, but there isn't a cloud in the sky? Look for an airplane up there and wonder.

Okay, so I would probably fly again. After four take offs and landings, I think I got the hang of it. Its all about realizing that once your on the plane, your pretty much going to make it to your destination or die. And no matter how tight your seatbelt is, or how boyant your seat cushion is, its an all or none situation. No big deal. I took one more look out my window before we landed:

Isn't it ironic, don't cha think?

The Good News on HD

2009-03-11T12:30:00.003-04:00

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

I believe that our friend Willy Shakespeare hit the nail on the head with this one. It doesn't matter what you call something, its nature remains the same.

I can't help but start with a nifty quote. It always seems to make my random diatribes have a slightly higher value. Also, I love me some Shakespeare.

So the inspiration for this blog originated on Interstate 75 on the way home from work this evening. As usual, I am tuned in to 700 WLW so I can keep up on local and national news. I typically enjoy the rantings of the talk show dudes. Plus, it keeps me awake thinking about how stupid the callers are, and the fact that they live in my neighborhood.

I cross the bridge and as I get off my exit a commercial for the local TV news comes on.
First of all, why in the hell does the news need a commercial? Its the news, its not like a hip show scrambling for its share of the ratings. Its the news. The same show that has been on the same channel at the same time (mostly) for the last 50 years. They show the same topics every night, local news, national news, weather, entertainment and occasionally a recall on some Toyota vehicle because the airbags randomly deploy on private drives in Kentucky. The newscasters are different throughout the years, but strangely their voices all sound the same. I'm always waiting for Clyde Gray to bust out into some Jive talking, but it never happens.

At the end of the commercial, they announce that the news is now brought to you in "HD". Cool. "High Definition" news. That is soooo awesome..... Wait a minute. Why is the news in HD? I'll stress this again, its THE NEWS. Its not a football game, or a fireworks broadcast, or even a sci-fi movie. ITS THE FREAKIN NEWS. Nobody cares if Carol Williams delivers the election results in 1080p High Def acuity. At the most, all you really get out of it, is now you can see why these news people have to wear so much damn make-up that it has to be applied with a spackling knife. The weather map does not change because its clearer on your TV screen. The war in Iraq does not end because you are viewing news reels in widescreen format.

Instead of technological advancement, all this HD term does for us is give a new moniker to the same old crap. Its perfectly valid to make certain things HD. Movies, sports, uh....porn. It does NOT make sense to have "Mr. Rogers" in High Def. Imagine how much cooler Mr. McFeelme would be if he was broadcast with more scanlines.

I remember back from my grocery days when Professional Strength Liquid Plumber came out. It sat right next to the regular Liquid Plumber on the shelf. For a while, they were the same price. I always saw humor in the fact that both products sold equally. Even though the "professional strength" spoke of results much higher than the original, people still bought the old stuff.

I also wondered if we were supposed to believe that "professional strength" meant that somewhere in the world, a guy called a plumber to his house, and the plumber poured his own "secret recipe" crap down the sink and it cleared it out.

It just goes to show that names, words, titles....they don't mean anything. Things are what they are and no matter what you call it, a rose is just a rose.

Until June, then you'll need a converter box or your rose will just be static.

You mean, from the toilet?

2009-03-11T12:28:00.001-04:00

This was slightly inspired by the movie "Idiocracy." If you haven't seen it, please do.

I was very thirsty today. On top of that, I was running around all day at work to appease the Christmas Shoppers, so I hit the drinking fountain several times.

My fourth trip to the fountain produced an interesting result. As I was lapping away at the stream of cool refreshing water, I heard the toilet flush in the ladies restroom. This caused the water pressure coming from the fountain to decrease rediculously. I'm not just talking about a small difference. The fountain basically turned off completely. This obviously means that both the drinking fountain and the toilet are fed by the water pipe.

My question is this: When the toilet needed extra water, it came from the fountain. Does this mean that, in converse, that if the drinking fountain needs extra water, does it come from the toilet? At what point does the fountain run out of water and need to pull from the toilet?

We've all experienced that moment when you're drinking from a fountain in public and it suddenly kicks on some sort of pump or refridgeration unit and starts making noise. Is that the moment when you start to get the toilet water?

I've have also noticed in several public drinking fountains that there seems to be a white rocky mess growing around the spout. Is this possibly a result of toilet backwash? I know what you're saying, "thats just calcium and it happens to lots of devices that dispense water." Well, maybe thats what they want you to think. Maybe, there is a bigger phenomena going on here.

We know that wherever there is a public drinking fountain, there is a toilet nearby. We also know, from my recent experience, that toilet water goes to the fountains. On top of all of this, we all have shower heads with this nasty white growth on them. These showers are located, yes..thats right, in the bathroom next to the toilet.

With all of this soild, conclusive, and scientifically sound info, we can deduce that the white gunk that grows on the ends of water dispensing units can only result from one thing:
Toilet water supplies all other water sources in the universe.

Think about this the next time you are taking a shower. Look up and see the toilet water fungus staring back at you. And don't forget the fountains with the cauliflower wreath around the spout. Its all a bunch of crap. Literally.