And Now, A Word From Your Senatorial Candidates

When we moved into our house eight years ago, my wife registered to vote in our new town. So did I, but I had the wherwithal to register as an independent. My wife registered as a Democrat. No big deal most of the time, but this year, holy crap!

For those of you who may not know, CT has a senate race this year in which a guy named Ned Lamont is challenging the incumbent Senator, Joe Lieberman, in a primary. It's heating up, and at the moment Lamont is ahead in the polls. As a result, both sides are pushing to get as many Democrats, (i.e., my wife), to vote for them.

In addition to get more junk mail fliers than you can shake a stick at, we';ve been getting at least three calls a week reminding us how swell each candidate is and what a dick the other guy is. We have reached the breaking point, so I've started having some fun with the people on the other end of the phone. If it's Lieberman's crew calling, I'll tell them I just don't trust Jews, and therefore will vote for the other guy. That's resutled in two seconds of stunned silince and then a hang-up. When the Lamont people called my wife told them that she had been planning to vote for them but since they had called too much she was going to vote for the other guy. That resulted in nervous laughter and an "I'm just trying to do my job" response. They haven't called back yet, but it's only been two days.

We also keep getting fliers addressed to the former owner of the house asking for her support. We'd forward the material to her, but umm, we bought the house from her estate 8 years ago.

So how are the Republicans poised to take advnatage of all the confusion on the other side? Well, they nominanted a guy who has apparently been gambling at one of our local casinos under a false name and has been sued by two other casinos for not paying up.

But since he hasn't called our house yet I may vote for him anyway.

Thanks for the Mammaries

Apparently there's some kind of controversy over this magazine cover. If you go to cnn.com, you can read all about it. Suffice it to say, some people apparently still get bent out of shape by pictures of boobies. But the reason I bring this up, in addition to wanting to put pictures of boobs on this blog, is that in the article there'sa quote from a woman who is still breast-feeding her 3-year old. Now, to me that's just creepy. I mean, my kids were eating solid food at that age. I understand that breast feeding is the most nutritious food for infants, (the key word there is "infant"), aside from Twinkies of course, but at age 3 I think it might be time to move onto the four basic food groups.

Pizza, hot dogs, McDonald's and ice cream.

And my personal opinion on this entire controversy is that there can't possibly be enough photos of breasts on magazines, unless they're Phil Mickelson's man-boobs, to keep me happy.

I may not be bright, but I am stupid

Here are some things you should do after giving blood.

Rest

Drink plenty of non-alcoholic fluids

Eat

Fuck off all day at work, and when questioned about it, point to the bandage on your arm and say "What have you done for humanity lately?"

You know what you shouldn't do?

Go home and try to run 4.5 miles on a hot humid day, (Ok, so it's like 88 with 70% humidity and Soozie thinks I'm a pussy. I live in CT, we're not used to such tropical weather), including plenty of hill work.

Know what'll happen if you do try it? Well, neither do I, becuase I don't really remember much about the last half of the run. I am pretty sure that I would have given up if the Easter Bunny hadn't showed up for the last half mile and called me a chicken shit asshole for not being able to finish.

Fucking Easter Bunny.

Beat on the Brat, Beat on the Brat

Beat on the brat with a baseball bat, oh yeahhhhhhhh.

I owe some of this post to Bill Simmons over at ESPN.com. If you don't know who he is, I want to be him when I grow up. And we're the same age. He's managed to make a living out of watching TV and going to sporting events and then writing wbout them. Why can't I do that? Besdies my need to actually move around from time to time. Anyway, he's pretty funny and this week he managed to identify a person who's been annoying the fuck out of me for the last couple of weeks.

As you may know from your unfortunate sojourns here, I don't watch American Idol and I hate everything it stands for. So while I usually know when it's on, I generally can't tell you who won. And six months after each season neither can anyone else. Whatever happened to that fat black guy?

Anyway, lately there's been a Ford commerical that revolves around some dorky white guy singing about how he gets what he wants and writhing about as though he were having a seizure. I can't stand that commercial and will atuomtically change the channel as soon as it comes on. I also won't buy Fords because of it. Well, that and because Ford makes shitty cars. But until this week I didn't know who this guy was. In Simmons's column someone was asking who he'd like to fight and he identified the ass-clown on the Ford commerical as Taylor Hicks, the winner of this year's American Idol. So now I know who this dickwad is, and I second the idea of fighting him. Every time that commercial comes on I want to just bite his fucking nose off. And America voted for him? Who was he competing against for God's sake? And how do I get to sign up to fight him. Steel cage, boxing ring, back alley, I don't care. He's gotta go. And I'm just the kind of unidentifiable coward writing a semi-anonymous blog to do it.

Seriously, I could totally kick his ass. No really. Honest.

Goin' to the Chapel And We're Gonna...

put our fucked up, dysfunctional lives on TV in a pathetic attempt to get some attention in our otherwise empty lives.

I just saw the worst, (well, one of 'em anyway) shows ever. it's on TLC and is called something along the lines of One week To Save Our Marriage. Lest you think I've gone soft my wife isn't feeling well this week so I was watching TV with her rather than downstairs in the basement drinking scotch, shooting pool and watching baseball on TV, as is my usual manly habit. When, you know, I'm not out shooting furry animals just to watch them die. In Reno.

At any rate, the premise of this show is that they get a couple whose marriage is "in serious trouble", and you know it's in serious trouble becuase they tell you this ad fucking nauseum. Then they get some "marriage rehabilitator", (I think that was what she called her self; I know it wasn't "counselor", or "licensed professional"), who lives in an RV outside their home for a week. The house is wired for cameras and the RV lady can see everything that goes on. Whenever she sees an adverse behavior, like bickering, apathy or non-consensual anal sex, she can come into the home and lecture the couple about what they're doing wrong. Then, for the five days she's around, (I guarantee I would set that RV on fire on Day 2), she plans little stunts for the couple to see what assholes they are to each other, and at the end of the week they have to decide if they'll commit to save their marriage.

I can't even remember the couples names in this show. The wife wanted sex three times a day becuase she mistook sex for intimacy and emotional attachment, to which my response was, "who cares what she's mistaking it for, this chick's a gold mine!", and the guy was, was, ...well, actually, I couldn't figure out what his initial problem was but by the end of the show I had determined that he was easily a top 3 candidate for World's Biggest Pussy because he a) wanted to play computer games rahter than bone his wife three times a day, b) picked a fight about who got to keep the family photos instead of grabbing all the electronic devices when they had to practice dividing propoerty, (before you jump down my throat, my wife came out of her coma long enough to say "what an asshole. Take the furniture and buy a camera later"), and c) cried during every scenario the RV nut put them through. Including the one where they had to tell a picture of their son that Mommy and Daddy were getting a divorce. I don't have to tell you I was on the floor for that one.

Not surprisingly, they agreed to commit to save their marriage at the end of the show, although I persoanlly think she'll be blowing strangers behind Starbucks by the end of the week and he'll be at home trying to reach Level 824 on Doom or some such nonsense.

My favorite part was when the couple had to go to the arcade and play games with each other while pretending to be the other person. I liked this becuase my wife and I play air hockey when we take the kids to an arcade, and let me tell you, she is vicious at that game. I was putting our usual repartee to the TV show and it went something like this

Her: I'm going to kick your ass
Me: Bring it bitch, (we don't let the kids watch us), you got nothi..oh you fucking whore
Her: That's 1-0 loser
Me: Oh, yeah?
Her: Hey, you aimed that at my hand on purpose!
Me: Yep! Oops, tie game, pay more attention next time.
Her: Asshole.

And so on and so forth until I inevitably lose 7-5.

Look for us next week on "One Week To Save Our Marriage"

We'll be the couple that call it quits on Day 3 just to piss off the producers..

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

I learned many things on my summer vacation. Not all of them were pleasant. For instance, on Thursday, we went to an amusement park. I'd rather not name the place, but it rhymes with Six Flags New England. It's a really, really good rhyme too. Here's what I learned there. First, if'n I'm going to pay $100 to get a family of four into the park, two of whom are too small to go on any of the cool rides, and therefore the other two won't be going on them either, should I really have to pay another $15 to park in an unshaded lot? Should I? Well, I did.

Then we went to the water park. here's something else I learned. There are a lot of women out there wearing bikinis who, well, should not be. Here's a test. If the swimsuit comes with a sort of upside down triangle flap hanging down from the bra, ostensibly to cover the belly, the suit should not be worn. All it does is point to the belly. It's not a good look. Really. As for the guys, both of you, I'm not sure what you were thinking, but unless you're about to leap off a platform and go for an Olympic gold, there is no reason to ever, ever, wear a speedo. To be fair they both seemed to be related and European, but that shit don't fly in New England a'ight?

Also, don't open your eyes under water in the wave pool. I'm pretty sure I did permanent damage to my corneas by doing so for about two seconds. Let's just say they're pretty liberal with the chlorine. Although, given the alternative, (think 9,682 kids in a 50' X 50' area, none of whom want to get out to go pee), I think I'll take the cornea damage.

I also learned that if you start out your local poker game by winning more than $260, but end it winning only $20, it will feel like a loss and gnaw at your very soul, even though the end result is that you had $20 more than you started with.

I also learned that if a meteor is going to hit the earth we will in all likelihood have no more than 1 second notice and then we'll all be dead. I learned this in a facinating book by a guy named Bryson called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" You should all go out and read it. Although maybe not if you get easily frightened by little things like Doomsday scenarios.

In a related note, I learned that drinking a gallon of whiskey doesn't help with the meteor thing.

I learned that the best place to take your kids swimming is the local swimming hole, even if it is posted all over with "No Swimming" signs. Apparently the 42 other people there, (it's a big place), couldn't read either. I also learned to take a garbage bag with me so I can clean up after a lot of other assholes who feel compelled to trash a beautiful spot. Honestly, is it that hard to carry your six-pack the hundred yards back to your car? And if it is, what god do I pray to that the meteors hit you in the head? Because I'll do it.

I learned more I'm sure, but this has gone on long enough, and I need to get back to work. Hope all is well.

I'm In The Mood For Love

Or at least for singing old standards off-key, much like Alfalfa used to sing to Darla back in the Our Gang shows. So wjy am I in the mood to sing, (badly), at this late hour of the evening? Well, for my birthday a while back, my wife, Xenu bless her, bought me a large bottle of Maker's Mark whiskey. A few days ago a friend of hers was given eight whiskey glasses with Maker's Mark embalzoned on them. She gave them to me. Which was cool. Not as cool as if she'd flashed me the boobs that got her those glasses for free in the first place, but cool nonetheless. Tomorrow, we're taking two small children to an amusement park for several hours, and to prepare for this I've been using my Maker's Mark glasses to drink my Maker's Mark whiskey and I have come to two conclusions. First, those glasses hold an awful lot of liquid, and two, while I didn't like the drink much at first, I have to say it's getting better with every sip.

I've also been trying toi complete a computer game wherein I build various empires, and since I'm currently playing the French, I figure I've got to get them, (and therefore me), good and wrecked so that they'll actually fight and instead of running away.

Oh, look, Doritos. Must run!!

The Babysitters Club

I am on vacation this week, so my posts here may get a wee bit sporadic. And possibly less lucid than usual depending on how much beer I can cram down my gullet after the monsters have gone to bed. We're not going anywhere this year, because some people in this house had, had, HAD, to get new living room furniture, and we have no extra funds to shlep off to some godforsaken vacationland. Instead we're staying home and going to amusement parks and out for ice cream and to basebal games and I am staring to realize that it may have been cheaper to take my wife to Tahiti and leave my kids, who are clearly both in the midst of growth spurts and have resorted to eating wallboard when I won't feed them between their mid-morning snack and early lunch, with the nearest group of itinerant Irish con artists for the week. Plus, they could have learned a trade. Oh sure, learing how to cheat senior citizens out of cash for shoddy driveway repair jobs may not seem that honorable, but when your father's a lawyer, well, anything seems like an upgrade.

Did I mention all the beer? Did I mention it's like 95 today and I spent a hell of a lot of it on a ladder putting primer on the house? Did I mention beer? I did? Good, cuz I've had a lot.

At any rate, some of you offered to babysit in the comments to the last post. None of you meant it, and don't think I don't know that, but I thank you anyway. We did get out, thanks to a combination of my mother and her relief pitcher, a friend of ours who showed up after attedning a wedding reception and slept on our couch for two hours. We paid her for that. Seriously. We're that desparate to get out of the house.

(As I write this, ESPN is doing something about dying kids with cancer meeting their athletic heroes. Not the least bit depressing. Not one bit. Really, I don't feel the urge to slit my wrists. Hopefully, I can hold out for the Yankee score.)

Now, thanks to a combination of heat stroke and chronic alcoholism, I've decided to respond to the generous "offers" to babysit.

Syd. Syd has 50 guns in her house, maybe more. Also lives in Mississippi and recently had whoopng cough. Generally speaking, when we interview babysitters anyone who owns enough guns to win a shoot out with our local polcie force gets big points, since I figure the odds of anyone getting through that sort of firepower is pretty slim. However, anyone getting whooping cough loses a lot of points, as rickets and scurvy can't be far behind. Seriously Syd, there must be a state nearby with better medical care.

Eclectic. Listen you, I have enough problems keeping up with my kids without you coming over for a night and turning them into the sort of superkids you're raising. Also, I'm way to cheap to pay for first class airfare from here to New Haven, to say nothing of Seattle.

CP. If I wanted a bisexual Jewish woman to watch my kids I'd....well, actually, I'd call their godmother, but that's another story.

Big Pissy. My daughter already has an unhealthy fashion with pink. I'm not sure how you would counter that, but I'm fairly certain that you'd finsih painting the house before we got home, but maybe not with the color I intended.

So of all the volunteers, I'm going with, TA-DA, Pud!!. Yep, she didn't volunteer, but I'm going to totally fuck up her "I have no kids party" if it's the last thing I do.

It Nice While It Lasted

Our children have been with my mother this week. They were supposed to stay through Satruday night, but reliable sources inform me that the homesickness fairy has arrived and its time to go and retrieve the young 'uns. While this will interfere with our plans to go to the casino tomorrow night, (thereby doing our part to makeup for centuries of white man oppression of our Indian bretheren), I can't get mad at an 8 year-old who tells his Mom he wants to come home because he misses her. Not if I ever want to get laid again anyway. So while this week has been a nice reminder of what life could be like without kids, ('Hey, let's go to the bar for the next five hours and not worry about a thing', 'hey, let's not wear clothes for two days'), we do miss the little fuckers and it will be good to have them back.

Can anyone babysit tomorrow night?

Karma, karma, karma

Eh, I can't finish that song, I just hate it. But I was mentioning the story of my first born's christening on another blog and discussing the karmic blowback that was sure to ensue, and I fugred I'd spill the whole story here.

First, I'm not a church goer. Although raised a Catholic, I have long since traded in my kneepads and now if I'm in church it's an alpha/omega situation, (or, for those of you not up on your Greek alphabet), a beginning or an end. As in weddings, funerals, christenings. Otherwise, I'll be at home surfing the net for porn.

Now, as you may have realized from the last paragraph, my family is Catholic, or at least was, (a 60% divorce rate will start rasing questions), and one thing we Catholics like is a good baptizing. Because as I learned in 7th grade at St. Stanislaus's Grade School & Peirogi Factory, if little babies die without being baptized, they aren't forgiven for original sin and can't get into heaven. Yes, it's a wonder I'm still not Catholic with a belief system like that isn't it? Anyway, everyone in the family is christened, even yours truly. So when I don't get into heaven it's going to be for all those dead hookers and not for original sin, because I'm cleared of that.

And when you're christened, you get to wear a gown. Even the guys. Some guys like the gowns so much that they later become priests and wear even fancier gowns, and later make the front pages of newspapers for a variety of activities, some of them legal. The gown in our family has been around for, I think, over 90 years. When my son was born he was the first of his generation, and I wanted to continue the tradition. So we had him christened.

In a Congregational Church.

With two Jews for godparents.

Now, I had gotten married in this same church, so I knew they were a little less formal than the Catholics. As in, "we'll have you married in 15 minutes and then it's open bar time" less formal. So when we decided that our Jewish friends were the ones for us, I was cautiously optimistic about working with the reverend. We mentioned that the godparents were heathens and didn't believe in Jesus Christ as Our Lord & Savior, (although we may have phrased it differently), and the reaction was swift. "Oh, no problem, we'll just take 'Jesus' out of the vows and put 'God' in instead. Will that work?" It would indeed work.

What we didn't know is that five other couples were having their kids baptized that same day, (although none of them had a 90+ year old gown, HA!), and we'd doomed five other children to an eternal after-life in limbo.

EDUCATIONAL SIDE-NOTE!! Limbo is where all the dead babies go if they're no baptized. It's not heaven, it's not hell, and it's not purgatory. Apparently the souls just sort of float around forever in a gray mist. I picture an airport baggage claim area. Makes you want to convert, doesn't it?

But it gets better. Apparently, the Congregationalists are big on audience participation, and the priest starts questioning the crowd about various things. My Grandmother, sitting in the fornt row and trying to get over her first great-grandchild being baptized by savages, gets into the swing of things and starts answering. My brother, sitting next to her, starts clapping his hands and saying "good answer, good answer" as though we were playing the Feud. Then the right reverend what's his name starts asking peopel to tell the rest of us what they're thankful for and of course it's one of my friends who pipes in with "I got a new watch."

In short, which is an odd thing to say after all this, I'm pretty sure that after changing the baptismal vows on five unsuspecting newborns, my balance at the karma bank is probably pretty darn low. But it was worth every penny. Good answer Grandma, good answer!!

And One By One, They Disappear

When I was in elementary school, my neighbor got me into bands like The Clash and The Ramones. That was my claim to fame at that age; I was the guy into punk rock. It sure as hell wasn't my athletic prowess, my looks or my abilities in the class room. And yet I grew up without any self-esteem issues! Imagine that. At any rate, guys like Joey Ramone and Joe Strummer were people I identified with, people whose music got me through the day and through that hellish period known as your teenage years. Well, their music, acne medication and in the later years, cheap beer.

Lately, these guys have been dying off. We've also lost musicians like Johnny Cash and Warren Zevon. I mention this today because I've learned that Syd Barret, the founder of Pink Floyd, died recently. In all honesty I like about two Floyd songs and could do without the rest, but I know millions of people, (one of whom I'm sleeping with), (yes my wife you pervert), did love the band and will feel the same shot to the gut that I felt when Joe Strummer died. It doesn't seem real. The people you grew up dancing to aren't supposed to die. In a sense I guess they don't, as just this morning I drove into work blaring "Blitzkrieg Bop" out the windows, and I'll continue to do so for, hopefully, quite some time to come.

So, to all you Pink Floyd fans out there, my sympathies. The music will live on.

Tell You What, I'll Have The Chocolate

News of The Weird this week informs me, and therefore you, that scientists somewhere have figured out a way to extract the vanilla flavor from, well, there's not other way to put this, shit. While they admit that even in the cleaned up and purified state the vanilla can only be used as a base for a scent and not for consumption, I think I'll be sticking with the chocolate family of ice creams for the time being.

I'd post more by my Mom has the kids this week and the wife and I have been finding other ways to fill the time and I'm kind of tired.




Hey, you paint the house in the summer and let's see how wide awake you are!!

You Say It's In Bad Taste

but I say Jesus made them do it.

Tonight, while pestering my wife for sex, I was forced to watch some of the news. This is becuase my wife is obsessed with watching the weather report, information which is crucially important to people who sleep indoors. While waiting for the token gay man to give us the weather report, (seriously, what is it with the weathermen? Is is a requirement that they be flamboyantly gay?), I heard a news story of a rather surprising nature.

It seems that one of the local dioceses of the Catholic Church, an organization not unknown for its acquisitive nature regarding finances, namely yours and mine, (really, how did 12 Jews let a business like that slip through their fingers?), is consdiering selling space in one of their cemeterys for a cell phone tower. Yes, that's just one dear old dead Aunt Doris wanted as part of her eternal rest; a nice pastoral view that includes the town, a few hills, and a fucking relay tower off to the east. Putting the obvious questions of bad tatse and greed aside, let's consider the less obvious question: don't these people know that this is how the zombies always get their start? Oh sure, that section of the state will have killer reception for a few weeks, the phone company will see an increase in revenue and The Diocese of Our Lady of Perpetual Pain and Suffering will see some nice rental income, but after that it's decaying corpses walking the streets and trying to acquire brains, namely yours and mine, after being reanimated by leaking electrcial charges from the cell phone cemetery. And when that happens, don't you come crying to me.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

My son's Little League ended last week. Although nothing official was recorded, the team finished 9-1. In their last game, the team aveneged their only loss, (an 11-10 score after 3 innings, game shortened due to a musical performance several kids from both teams had to go to. Only in Little League), by a score of 26-4. The parents from one of the other towns referred to our team as "The Mean Green", due, I suspect, to our green uniforms and our habit of kicking the ever-loving Christ out of other teams. Although we were always nice about that. During the last game I caught one of the coaches, (actually a pretty good guy), recruiting our best player for next year. When I called him on it he said his strategy at next year's draft was to bring a copy of our roster with him and just go down the list. Our team was one of 7, each with 10-12 kids, from three towns. Our team defintiely had the best 4 players in the league on it and probably the best 6.

I'd say we definitely had the best 6 but one of the kid's rarely showed up, and the other one was a whiny little bastard. So screw them.

When our season ended and I was handing out some trophies that I bought, (although not from Soozie; sorry about that Soozie, but CA is a long way from CT), I was a little sad, because these kids, in terms of baseball, have probably peaked. They'll all continue to get better, most of them will keep playing, but I seriously doubt that they'll ever get on another team with that concentration of talent, (which believe me the coaching had NOTHING to do with), when compared to their peers, ever again.

Coincidentally, that was my parting speech to them, and I advised them that they should therefore start drinking heavily.

Random Thoughts On A Long Weekend

If you're on a boat trip to see fireworks and you're tied up next to a boat full of people who even hillbillys look down on, and one of them jumps into the river, which is really high due to recent rains, and more importantly, running a much stronger current than usual, do you, being a strong swimmer, jump in after them when they pop up 20 yards downstream from the boat and clearly can't swim that well? Yeah, I didn't either. Good thing there was another boat coming up behind her. Moron. Although in fairness I was on the stern ready to go in but found it hard to jump with my wife attached to my legs.

I saw "Blade: The Series" again on Tuesday night, and while I'm pleased to announce that Jill Wagner hasn't gotten any uglier, every time I hear one of the vampires say "House of Kathung" I get confused with the International House of Pancakes and feel the need to order three golden browns with blueberries and whipped cream. Actually, I get that same feeling when I see Jill Wagner, but without the pancakes.

When your 8 year-old gets upset because you're not letting him go near the backyard fireworks but his 10-year old friends Dad is letting him do it, is the correct answer "He's older than you" or is it "His Dad is a fucking idiot and you're not going anywhere near them when you're 10 either"? Guess which one I went with.

My idea of hell is now having to endlessly scrape paint while 16' up on a metal ladder with the temperature in the low 90's and the humidity roughly the same.

All of the best swimming holes seem to have "No Swimming" signs posted all over them. Once your kids learn to read, this presents a moral problem when asked why you're swimming there. My answer: Those signs are just there so that if anyone drowns the owner can't get sued. This is going to bite me in the ass some day, I just know it.

"Unforgiven" may be the best movie ever. Watching Clint Eastwood enter the bar and asking "Who's the fella owns this shithole?" while leveling a shotgun at everyone is the definition of menace.

Jameson's whiskey tastes good. But it will adversely affect your ability to shoot pool.

That's all. Hope everyone else had a good 4th.