Friday, April 27, 2007

In case you were wondering

Abe Vigoda is still alive.

And I'm working on some stuff for next week. Thanks for your patience.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

how NOT to play - for poker fans only

The following video propted this exchange.

AA: Did you see the video.

B: HAHAHA...Phil Iveys stare is the funniest part.

B: Did you notice Jennifer Tilly panting like a dog in heat.

AA: You mean they way her tits kept heaving up and down over and over ? No I didn't notice that at all.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

hot commodities

Footage the other night included piranhas scavenging an injured fish in a flurry of activity that saw the victim go from fish to bones in a matter of minutes.

A similar event occurs at my house on a daily basis. Instead of piranhas I have my wife and kids. Instead of injured fish we have toilet paper, bottled water, and chips.

The toilet paper thing I think I've mentioned before. I initially thought that perhaps they were all mistaken and thought that you were to stick your finger in the roll hole and wipe with the entire roll. They've assured me, however, that they actually unwind the paper from the roll and use it as prescribed. Somehow though, I come home every week with a gigantic package of 50 rolls every Monday night...but every Sunday morning I find myself on the can paperless.

Don't tell anyone, but I've started hording the stuff and hiding it around the house.

The bottled water is a new phenomena. I drink water from the spigot. I'm no elitist. But my wife doesn't like the taste and insists that the kids also don't like the tap water ( but I've conducted my own secret experiments and have concluded that they wouldn't know the difference if i served them sewer water). So they have a Brita filter. The bite in my ass is that EVERY DAY I find the Brita either empty or with less than a glassful in the tank. I don't even drink from the friggin thing and I have to fill it every day.....its sort of like my daughters fish who's tank I change, but that's a different story. So aaaaaaanyway, whenever I have a poker game I buy bottled water for my guests. Without exception the piranha show the next morning. As early as the next afternoon I find half drank bottles of water all over the house. THEY DON'T EVEN FINISH THEM. I haven't had a case of water last until Wednesday...ever. The irony is that the Brita stays full.

And the chips should be pretty self explanatory. And it doesn't matter what chips they are...tortilla, potato, sun chips, whatever. If it's flattened and it chunches, it's gone. No bag of chips has made it more than 24 hours. WAIT that's not true. Often the chips get shredded down to a half inch of crumbs and then the bag is rolled up and tossed into the cabinet in favor of opening a second bag and shredding that down. Two weeks ago i purposely bought the most rancid flavor of chips that I could find...salt and vinegar or spinach and shrimp or something like that. I figured that way I could come home from work and have something...ANYTHING...to much on. I came home, opened the closet...nothing. All gone.

So I'm in the market for a foot locker or some sort of safe. It needs to be big enough for a case of water, two rolls of TP, and a bag of chips. Anyone selling, please contact me via the email address on the right. Thanks.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Sunday Night Line-up

In the absence of football, Sunday night television has been a waste land. That is until I came across the Discovery Channel Sunday night line-up.

First up PLANET EARTH

This show definitely lives up to the hype. Much of it in HD, much of it in high speed, and all if with the most amazing nature footage since Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. If you have kids, its really something that you'll enjoy and learn from together.

This is followed by MAN VS WILD

Here's the gig. The take this British Special Services dude and drop his ass somewhere remote and he has to get his ass out safely. Last night they put him at the top a Sierra Nevada mountain with nothing except a canteen, a knife and a flint.

In one episode the dude started a fire with a stick, ate a live snake, killed a rabbit with a stick, and came within inches of jumping on the back of a wild horse. Oh yeah, he also built a raft out of sticks and grape vines. He's like the real life McGuyver.

Add to that MythBusters, Dirty Jobs, and Deadliest catch and you have an awesome combination of reality/educations/entertaining television that might be unmatched. I'm baffled by the fact that major network television with all its resources is putting on stuff like The Bachelor and Super Nanny instead of quality programing like the stuff liked above.

It can't be rating numbers..because like George Castanza says when asked why people will watch something..." Because it's on television".

Friday, April 13, 2007

Hot Gril Challenged

I'm coaching my 8 year old daughters soccer team this season.

The team has been the same group of girls for 3 years, with the same head coach. Every season they have a different assistant coach. I hadn't considered how the team was alway able to find a parent to volunteer to help out at the last minute. If I had considered it, I might have seen what was coming.

At the first practice a gaggle of mothers conspired to blindside me..." you're athletic"..."the girls would appreciate it"...and " if you coach you don't have to bring a snack for the games "...and the next think I knew I had a whistle and clipboard.

It's all worked out for the best as I'm having a great time. The team is good, the head coach is a good guy, and it's given me some extra time with my daughter.

Hot Gril's role with the team is as their best scorer. She's not their best player, maybe not even in the top two, but by far she's always been the biggest kid and fastest one on the field. I've always felt that fact has hindered her skill development. Rather than have to learn how to control the ball or watch the rest of the field, she just kicks the ball as far away from all the other players as possible, then outruns everyone, goes the full length of the field and kicks the ball into the goal.

All that is about to change.

At the first practice this year, the coach introduced the team to their newest player. This girl who we'll refer to as New Gril is a little bit taller, a little bit faster, and just maybe a little, dare I say it, a little bit prettier than Hot Gril. All of this has not gone unnoticed and none of this is going down well in the Flick household.

On the drive home from the second practice Hot Gril asked, " Do you think New Gril is faster than me ?"

Now this gets a little touchy for a father so I went diplomatic, " Hmmm, I think it's pretty close."

" Well I think she's faster than me.", apparently 8 year old girls already know that 'diplomatic' is code for 'full of shit'.

I felt like this was one of those moments that you see in a bad Disney movie or a McDonald's commercial and that I needed to step it up into Daddy overdrive. " If she is a faster, it's only by a little little bit, but that's no big deal. All it's going to take is a little extra practice. I'll take you out and practice some more if you'd like.

" Really ?", she sounded a bit more hopeful. Maybe I'm getting better at this parenting stuff.

" Yeah," I continued, " That and you have to start playing with confidence."

" Con-fi-dence ? What's that", she asked puzzled.

" Confidence....hmmm....ok, this of it this way. Lets say you and someone who is just as fast as you...you're both totally equal....and you're both going for the ball. Who is going to be the first one to get there ? The first one to get there is going to be the one who really wants it the most and tries the hardest. The person who is going to get that ball is the person who believes the most that they're going to get that ball and nothing is going to stop them....that's confidence."

" Hmmmmmm", she mulled that over for a while, " confidence."

And that pretty much was the end of that conversation.

Next Monday brought a cold overcast evening and we put the girls through their drills and exercises for the first 15 minutes of practice. Finally the head coach said, " It's too cold, lets just have them scrimmage so they can stay warm."

He got out the pinnies and started handing them out as 10 hands shot into the air. Hot Gril being the tallest ( well now second tallest) grabbed the first pinnie. New Gril also started to grab a pinnie, saw that my daughter had one, and let go. She looked a Hot Gril, looked at the head coach and said, " I don't want a pinnie, I want to be on the other team." She then walked over the the left wing and set up directly across from Hot Gril.

Game on.

Now as a father, the whole thing had me nervous. It breaks my heart to see any of my children sad. But in the case of Hot Gril, seeing her distraught about anything doesn't break my heart, it smashes it, grinds it up into little pieces, and tosses it into the wind. The last thing I think I could take would be to see her spirit broken.

That being said, as a sports fan, this was shaping up to be really cool !

The game began and it quickly became apparent that New Gril was a cut above. It appeared that she probably hadn't ever played organized soccer before because she lacked some of the fundamentals, but she was a natural athlete and beautiful to watch.

For those of you who have never seen little kids play, you'd be shocked at what age that natural physical ability begins to show itself. I'm constantly amazed at what I see 7 and 8 year old kids do on a field. There is a kinestetic awareness that comes natural to some people and this girl has it. She knows where she is in relationship to the other players on the field at all times and she has the physical skills and size to force herself to where she needs to be. The only limiting factor, and this is inherant to soccer, is that most of the other kids are spazzing and flailing at the ball so much that regardless of what skills you possess, that most of the time, the ball is just bouncing around in a giant herd of kids.

Finally after a good ten minutes of playing, the inevitable happened. Out of the sea of legs and ponytails, the ball popped loose and shot to vacant side of the field. Immediately two figures shot out of the pack.

Hot Gril and New Gril popped out of the scrum like two thoroughbreds coming out of the gate at Churchhill Downs. Side by side they sprinted, knees kicking, arms pumping, neither one giving up an inch. The rest of the game sort of paused in time as we all became spectators to something that had very little to do with soccer.

As they got close to the ball New Gril's instincts started to kick in. My heart starting to sink as I anticipated what was coming next. Sure enough, New Gril's arm came out and she stuck he forearm into my daughter and started to lean into her for position. They continued at full speed, but steadily, and as surely the lump that started to form in my throat, she started steering my daughter away from the ball.

Just as I started to give up hope, something unexpected happened. Hot Gril suddenly stood up a little taller. Hot Gril lifted her right arm up under New Gril's elbow and into her ribs. And Hot Gril...no, not Hot Gril...MY DAUGHTER started leaning back !

They hit the ball at the same time in a furious collision of cleats and flesh. Call it what you will....fate...devine intervention...a forearm to the ribs....whatever ...but New Gril lost her balance and went ass-over-tea kettle, smashing to the ground. To her credit as a warrior, the girl never gave up the ghost. As she went rolling and skidding across the ground she never stopped kicking and trying to steal the ball away...I mean this girl is a killer. But on this day, on this time, it wasn't going to be enough. Hot Gril was gone. She took the ball the rest of the way down the field and as if to put an exclaimation point on the end of a beautiful sentence, blasted a shot past the goaltender and into the back of the net.

The rest of us trotted up to that end of the field and by the time we got there both girls were heading back toward us and both had huge smiles on their faces. Their paths met on the way back to midfield and as the coach dismissed everyone to go get a drink the girls gave each other a hug. The other teams in the league have no idea what they're in for.

I tried to stay cool and stuck out my hand for a high five as my daughter trotted past on her way to get her water bottle. " Good job out there" was about the best I could muster without embarassing both of us.

She reached up and gave me a little slap. With a broad smile and twinkle to her eyes said one word as she jogged by,

" Confidence"

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Too funny to not post

back on track

Due to illness, general malaise, and circumstances beyond my control I was out of commission for a few days.

But I'm back on track and have a couple of things to offer. Check back here by 10 am tomorrow and I'll see what i can put together.

As a reward for your patience, here's a monkey washing a cat.


Tuesday, April 10, 2007

I'm empty

So you're going to get the YouTube treatment until I get it back


Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Saved by Alanis

My job sucked a big hunk of my soul out last night. I left work at 9:30 pm and was having a hard time making coherant thoughts or finding any humor in life. Even some good company and a decent basketball game couldn't get me back to even.

I woke up this morning dreading work and feeling hollow.

Then I found this. Thank you Alanis Morissette for bringing a little humor into my life. Thank you Alanis Morissette from bringing back hope. Thank you Alanis MOrissette for you and your humps.

Monday, April 02, 2007

The Ultimate Fatso

I've become a big fan of MMA. For the uninitiated, that's mixed martial arts. It takes various forms on television as Pride Fighting, BoDog MMA, or the more visible version that's fought in an octagon cage, Ultimate Fighting.

Ultimate Fighting has been helped into prominence by a reality show run continuously on Spike TV called, aptly, The Ultimate Fighter. They take a handful of fighters, have them live together, train them, and them fight an elimination tournament. It's all fairly intriguing.

Like other reality shows, the people forced to live together don't always get along. But what differentiates itself from those shows is that you don't have a bunch of whining melodramatic drama queens screaming at each other. When people on this show don't get along then just go to the ring and beat the piss out of each other. That really eliminates a good portion of the smack talk.

In season 3 there was a guy who was being too rough during sparing. He was also being a douche around the house. People tried talking to him. People tried pointing out the error of his ways. People tried accommodating him. The guy just wouldn't budge. So one day at practice his first sparring partner kicked him in the head. The next guy gave him an uppercut. Sore jaw... Concussion... Problem solved.

The only thing about the show that I don't like...but provides great insight...is how a number of the guys who lose try and blame their failure on luck or chance. Other guys accept defeat by looking at what they did wrong and what the other guy did right in an attempt to improve their standing. In an arena where nothing is dependent upon chance, and where success and failure is stripped down to the basics, where you have two guys standing alone on their own abilities and preparation...the differences between the whiner and the non-whiner are glaring.

To me it shows that while victory might show who the better athlete was on that day, defeat is often the true test of a man's character.

Yeah, yeah, I know you didn't come here for a Tony Robbins infomercial but I'm out of fart jokes and poop stories this morning so deal with it.

I've come to the realization that I've become one of 'those guys'. What I mean is that for 15 years I was fit. At times very fit. And when I'd hear guys talk about how they had to 'get into shape' but they 'couldn't find the time' I'd roll my eyes and think that they were full of shit...which they were.

But I caught myself once again sitting on the couch lamenting the fact that I've gained, no joking, 30 lbs in the last two years. I was saying to my buddy, " I have to get into shape, I gotta get myself together."

I almost sounded like I meant it.

Then he looked at me and asked, " You mean you're not going to eat that ice cream or that you're not going to drink that beer ?" pointing at the two items sitting in front of me on the TV tray.

"I'm going to start tomorrow."

That time I sounded a little less convincing.