howling at the moon

When my buddy Tom first graduated college he started dating this girl he worked with.
She was a beautiful fun girl and they really hit it off. The only obstacle with their relationship was that she still lived with her parents.

So at 24 years old he was still doing the same stuff he had been doing back in high school....going over to he house, getting the once over by her father, having to get her home at a respectable hour, etc etc. As you might imagine, this situation made "hanky-panky" a bit comlicated. Their jobs and her parent's house were both in the city, meanwhile Tom's apartment was 20 minutes out into the suburbs. On a typical night, getting off work and driving back and forth, in and out of the city, and then getting her back home at a decent hour was cumbersome. Oh don't get me wrong, two healthy 24 year-olds would walk to 15 miles barefoot on glass if that's what it took. I'm just saying it was cumbersome.

Due to a variety of factors ( holiday, schedule change at work etc) about a week went by without Tom and his girl being able to make their regular jaunt out to the countryside. As you might imagine, a week at that age is just about at the limit of human endurance. So when Tom went to drop her at home after a late dinner and she invited him in, it was almost physically impossible for him to refuse.

With the parents asleep upstairs, the two sat on the living room couch making out with the scene becoming increasingly more, shall we say, 'involved'.

Finally, she whispered into Tom's ear, " Lets go up to my room"

" No way," he answered, " not with your parents up there." Tom had a healthy respect for parents and a healthy fear of very large fathers who owned very loaded handguns.

" Well, we're not doing it down here, so its either upstairs or we have to stop. ", she said, going right to her trump card.

So reluctantly, fearfully, Tom tiptoed behind her up the stairs and into her room.

Whatever excitement the girl had shown downstairs was somehow amplified by the danger of having her parents across the hall. She tore off her jeans and started passionately tearing at Toms clothes.

Tom's fears were temporarily put aside by this good turn of events, but he was snapped back into reality when in mid...errrrr...stride his girl let her emotions get the better of her and she started moaning rather loudly.

OHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......MMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Tom stopped. Frozen.

" What are you doing ? Don't stop.", she purred.

" You were being kinda loud. You gotta be quiet. I don't want to get shot", he whispered quiet as a church mouse.

" OK' she agreed and pull him closer.

Two minutes later...

OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH......UUUUHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH...AAAAHHHHHHHHHH

She was at it again.

He paused...although pausing this time was much more difficult.

" No, no, no don't stop I'm so close...I promise I'll be quiet", she begged.

What's a brother to do ? Tom started in again.

Sure enough as soon as he started, SHE started....OOOOHHHHHHHHHH.

Now Tom figured he could either stop all together or he could just go as fast as he could and just get it over with...that's to say he really only had one choice. So Tom went at it intensely as he could...a man on a mission. And she responded in kind..

YYYYYEESSSSSSSSS ! OOOHHHHH GODDDDDDD YESSSSSSSSSS ! At the top of her lungs.

Finally she finished and they collapsed in a heap. Tom stared at the door and readied himself for the father to come bursting in six-guns a'blazin.

The two of them lay there in the dark listening. Tom terrified and planning his way out the window, his girl in blissful half slumber. By the grace of God nothing happened. Maybe the parents were heavy sleepers, maybe he was just paranoid and she wasn't being as loud as he thought. In any case, Tom counted his blessing and slowly and quietly slipped out of bed, slid his clothes on and tip-toed downstairs relieved.

The house was totally dark and silent and he smiled at his good futune.

But as he went to leave, the note taped to his jacket wiped the smile from his face. It read....

NEVER AGAIN !

156.25 - first draft

156.25 miles.

That’s the distance from Philadelphia to Atlantic City and back. It the length of six and a quarter marathons, or for more traditional sports fans…about 250,000 football fields. More pointedly, for those cyclists who come to Philadelphia each June to fulfill a promise of a year’s training 156.25 miles is also the measure of a man.

For athletes used to racing in events like the Snake Alley criterium in Burlington, Iowa or torturing each in the deserted mounts of New Mexico’s tour of the Gila, Philadelphia is Bob Barker’s Showcase Showdown.  Mo other event in north America provides this type of live television coverage, this much money, or this much prestige. 

This event also has spectators, and a lot of them. Where most events might stretch at 500-1000 spectators, over 100,000 rabid drunken fan…Philly Fans…turn out for what is dubbed as the East Coast’s biggest block party.

About 30,000 of those fans were screaming so loudly that I couldn’t hear my mechanic trying to get my attention in the seat behind me. Finally he had tapped me on the shoulder and drew my attention away from the drunken bikini clad girls with half filled plastic cups that adorn the slopes of the Manyunk Wall every June. What he pointed to was the figure of a rider losing contact with the breakaway and starting to fall back through the caravan of cars that follow the race.  Other than the oppressive heat of a Philadelphia summer the biggest obstacle of this bicycle race is the Manyunk Wall. The wall rises at a 17% grade for about 3/4s of a mile and then pitches to about 22% for the last 600 yards. The riders do this climb half way through each of the 15 mile laps for a total of 11 times. Starting around the third lap, every time up the hill the race requires the offering of a human sacrifice. 

This was lap 3.

Each time up the hill, a year of pain and travel and crashes and loneliness of the road , a season of going to bed early, of not eating while hungry, of hundreds of hours of solitude in riding in all weather, of suffering through questions about when you’re going to get a “real job” ….all of that gets sacrificed to the gods of gravity. And in front of the ravenous South Philadelphians in mid-day bender, professional bicycle racer Trent Klasna was the sacrifice.

I moved to the car slightly to the right to offer him a little more room and the tall handsome Californian drew up along side our car for a couple of moments. He was in intense pain and equally intense concentration. We had just hit the steepest section of the climb and with only 600 yards to go he hadn’t given up hope. Despite being at his physical limits, he hadn’t ‘cracked’. He still had hope, and he still had fight. It’s the great tease of cycling…” If I can just get to the top of the hill…if I can just get to down the next descent…if they just ease up for a second.”   But just as quickly as he came into view, he slid back behind to the next car and then slowly out of site.

Bicycle racing does not mourn its dead, at least not very long. And where there were once 26 cyclists 5 minutes ahead of the 100 rider chasing group, there were now 25. What goes up, must come down and the riders and team cards weren’t thinking about what was behind them. 

Seemingly by design, the only quiet section of the races comes about 1 mile after the white-knuckle ‘fall from the wall’. For a stretch of about a mile and a half the race uses some flat back roads of Fairmont Park  This stretch gives the riders a chance to sit up and how many riders are left .  It also gives the team cars a chance to pick up all the wheels and water bottles than flew all over the inside of the vehicle while flying down the corners back from the hilltop.  That’s exactly what we were doing when I heard the BEEP BEEP. Two quick beeps is shop talk for “ There’s a rider coming up through the cars. In addition to the cars serving a rolling water stops/ bike shops, the cars also serve the purpose of providing safety and shelter to the riders. When a rider has a mechanical or requires feeding, he’ll come back to the cars, get what he needs, and then jump from car bumper to car bumper, drafting his way back to the shelter of the field. The beep wouldn’t usually surprise me, but I hadn’t seen any rider go back for food or water.  When I checked I the mirror I was surprise to see the green and blond figure of Trent Klasna fighting his was back into the race. 

“ If I can just got over the hill…..if they just ease up…”. This time, also out of respect, I DID make eye contact, “ great job Trent” and off he went, forward this time, and out of sight into the safety of the flock.

This was Trent Klasna’s last year. He had been a professional since 1998 when he took up cycling to help straighten himself after a few troubled years of partying around the beaches of Southern California. One addiction for another. However good he may have been at rolling joints and drinking Bud pounders, he was much better at this bicycle racing thing. Almost immediately he rose through the ranks of amateur cycling and into a job with Saturn, the most dominant team in North America. In 2001 he was the US Time Trail Champion and the Overall Champion of the National Series. But then came a series of injuries, bad luck, and the demised of the big budget Team Saturn. When 2003 ended Klasna found himself a forgotten hero and out of work . Like I said, cycling doesn't mourn its dead.

With a new house, newly married, and the hopes that he still had one more good year left in him, Klasna took up the 2004 season with the new and inexperienced Sierra Nevada Cycling Team. For the beer sponsored team, signing Klasna was a boon. His addition brought instant credibility to the team and with that came access to bigger races and some respect in the pecking order of the controlled chaos of the racing peloton. Klasna honored the contract with strong performances in early California races like the Redland Classic and Sea Otter at Laguna Secca. But once he started losing the benefit a mild California winter it started becoming apparent that Trent was no longer the champion who dominate the scene from 1999-2002. As April turned into summer Klasna was having trouble hanging in the field and was being left behind by riders who should have been asking for his autograph.

Still, Klasna was a professional and he had a job to do. His name alone meant press coverage and TV time in Philly. His experience and attitude was an asset the young riders of his team. His best hope was to get up the road early and his attack initiated the early (suicidal) break that went away at the 5 mile mark. At the very least with the motorbike camera catching his return to the break he was providing his human billboard return on investment for the folks at the brewery who signed the check each month. Of course once you’re back in the race anything can happen. In 1995 the suicidal move went away at the start, got 35 minutes, and never came back. It could happen. Those were the thought going through the minds of Trent Klasna and the other escapees as they ate, drank, and prepared for lap around the track.

The next 5 times up the wall were a repeat of the same. Each time up Klasna would get dropped, usually with one or two other riders. And each time across the flats of Fairmont Park I’d hear the BEEP BEEP and see the lone figure of the cagey veteran making his way back to what was left of the break…” one more lap…one more time up the hill…maybe my legs will come back”.

But with just a few laps to go, news of the inevitable came across race radio. The Dutch powerhouse CSC had enough of the games and was driving the chase from behind. The lead group, which was down to about a 15 riders was losing 20 seconds a mile and their lead evaporated from 7 down to 3 minutes across the start/finish area. As the breakaway entered downtown Manyunk, their lead was just over a minute and the riders pressed on knowing that if they could get over the wall before getting caught, they might have a good chance of finishing the race hour of racing with the front group. As we hit the lower slopes of the Wall with the chase breathing down our neck the riders put everything they had into the climb. Immediately Klasna got popped. Just as he had all day, he lowered his head and pressed on. But this time as he went by there was no faking it….he was cracked. 

As we rounded the corner at the top of the hill you could see front of the chase group starting to swarm Klansna on their way to eating up everything in their sights. Now the break was caught, the pretenders and their false hope put away, and the stars were battling it in what was shaping up to be an exciting final 40 miles. 

Our team ( among those pretenders) lost its last rider in that same surge.  With all of our riders out of contention, t there was not point in driving the car around for the last hour and a half. After dropping the car off at the feed zone and tending to our riders, we ran the two blocks back to the hotel to watch the closing 10 miles.

With everyone out watching the race live the bar was empty except for a bored bartender and one lone patron with his head in his drink. We saddled up to the bar, I ordered a couple of beer and asked the bartender to turn up the TV as my mechanic shared a much needed cigarette with the guy sitting to his left. The race was in full cry with five riders holding a slim 20 second lead to a chase group of around 40 riders. The bartender asked what was going on.

“ Well those five have got to try and hang on another few miles”, I answered.

The bartended asked, “ Do you think they can do it ?”

And before I could answer, the guy at the end of the bar spoke up with a half slur, “ Bahhh, NO WAY.  You need at LEAST 40 seconds coming off Lemon Hill. And Horner isn’t going well. If he felt decent he’d be waiting for the sprint.”

Stunned, we all turned to around to see what kind of barfly knows so much about bicycle racing, and the bartender asked, “ You sure seem to know what you’re talking about pal. What are you, a pro biker ?”

Trent Klasna, freshly showered and three beers in looked up over his pint and took a drag from his cigarette, “ Nope.” He said with an exhale, “ not any more.”

out of mouth of (little evil) babes

The five year old this morning...

" Hey Dad "

- good morning princess

" yeah....Elivis died on the toilet"

- nice segue

What up cuz, what up blood, what up gangsta

For reasons not worthy of explination I attended a gang educational seminar at the local elementary school. As we were told, " It's never too early to prepare you kids for the dangers out there." which I roughly translate to mean, " Its never too early to freak out a bunch of suburban upper middle class white soccer moms."

Lets be real. By definition, the child of anyone attending that meeting is already at low risk.....well with the exception of my kids I suppose. In a community of less than 5% minority representation and household incomes over 70K you don't need gang seminars. Now you probably do need a symposium titled " Why my husband surfs internet porn " or " What to do when Mommy is whacked on Prozac and is banging our Mexican gardener" but that's a discussion for another day.

Anyway, what made the entire experience particularly entertaining for me personally was the the squareness of it all. Some local detective got up and warned the masses against the evils of gangs, this scarey evil thing called MYSPACE, and vicious gangsta rappers like Ice-T. ICE fucking T ?!?!? Ice-T is on Law and Order for christsake...hes a GRANDPA ! And this Tupac fellow is quite shady apparently...oh how so 90's.

The grand finale of it of course was a 3 minute slideshow presentation of pictures and myspace pages of " actual local teens " !!! My god ! Actual local teen gang memebers being outted. After this I swear Im getting a cell phone with a camera built in. The three minutes that followed were like a Eminem look alike pagent. Goofy ass white nerds, standing in front of their Dad's middle aged crisis Mustang, with a blunt hanging out of their mouths, holding a BB gun and flashing 'gang signs'.

I am just so greatful that my picture didn't show up.

I'm playing on Poker Stars

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 3884981

All you can eat

Instantaneuous Male Enhancement

I was watching TV on Friday night and an ad came up for a product that claimed "instantaneous male enhancement", so I had to stop and check that out.

That one hell of a claim to be making. A product that will instantly make your weiner grow ?

Well I still don't know what the stuff is or even what its name was, but I do believe it work. How can I make such a claim ? Because at the end of the commercial they showed that the product came as a cream to be applied.

Now I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that if I start rubbing cream on my weiner, that I am going to experience some instantaneous male enhancement.

My suggestion is that they make a similar product for gay men, but market it as a suppository.

annoyances

- When people call you cell phone and you don't answer and then they call your landline. Yo dillweed, if I do'nt answer my cell there's probably a pretty good reason and its not going to be any LESS inconvenient for me to answer my work or home phone. Leave a friggin message. ( on the flip side, if you can't get me on the landline, I think its perfectly acceptable to ring the cell).

- Return notifications on my email. Go ahead, request that shit all you want, I hit deny everytime. I don't work for you peckerwood.

- Kanye West and Star Jones. I couldn't pick either one of them out of a line up unless everyone else in the line up was a Jewish midget, but everytime either one of them takes a dump its front page news. Best I can figure out one of them was fat and now is moderately fat and the other one is a whiney bitch. If that's all it takes to be famous these days I should have my own network.

- The phrase " Some days are better than others". Because pessimistic people have hijacked what should otherwise be a rather optimistic phrase. At face value it's saying, " He man every fucking day is great and remarkably some of those days are even BETTER !!!" but the only time I've ever heard it uttered is by some down on his luck sad sack who's trying to act like he's bucking up to the challenge. Yo Sisyphus, quit your bellyaching.

- Grandparents Day. Fuck you, not a holdiday...next.

- Motherfuckers who think that shaking hands is some sort of dick measuing test of wills. Give a pump and move on Hercules. I've had dudes turn their hand atop mine, or over squeeze, or refuse to be the first one to let go...what the hell is that all about ? Here's the deal, if you pull any of that shit on me for now on, I'm going to use the oppotunity of holding your hand and standing close to you to render you defenseless and kick you in the balls. You've been forwarned.

Update my blog eh ? Be sorry what you ask for.


-

starting to crack

First girls U10 soccer game was this past Saturday.

We showed up to find that our team of 11 3rd graders and 2 4th graders was going to play a team entirely comprised of 4th graders.

So what the big difference you ask ? We'll apparently all that shit they say about the evils of giving steriods to dairy cows is correct. Because starting at 4th grade, girls start to grow a freakish rates.

All that passing and trapping and running around cones doesn't mean shit when you're a 3rd grade girl getting run over by 5'6" girls with fully developed breasts and moustaches.

Anyway, it was a fitting ending to an otherwise shit-laden week.

I'm really starting to crack. I can't take much more bullshit and despite increasing my intake of beer to record levels I don't think I can stave of the inevitable flipping out that is about to occur. My biggest hope is that I can get through one more PTO meeting ( yeah there's ANOTHER ONE tonight) without going after someone else with a show shovel.

Interestingly enough, despite all the termoil, stress, and alcohol....or maybe because of it, I'm playing the greatest golf of my life. I recently started playing again and after a lifetime of shooting 90, I find myself about 8-10 shots better. I flirted with breaking 80 last week, followed that up with a 2 over 38 for nine a few days later, and shot the lights out this past Saturday.

Maybe if I sign up for volunteer community penis piercing at the local Church it will send me over the edge and I can join the PGA tour.

Here's hoping to getting through the night

The PTO

I think I've provided some background on the PTO and how I was duped into the whole PTO thing etc etc. I've tried to put that in the past and really focus in making the best of the situation.

Right now my main challenge is in dealing with the other board members. They're extremely nice people, and I think I'm finding that part of the problem. They're super psyched about their kids, they're super psyched about the school, and they're super psyched about the PTO. Everything is totally fucking awesomely wonderful. Most of the members are stay at home Moms who've directed all of their energies into the school. The few guys who sit on the board are middle management business men and/or salesmen who look at the board as a networking tool and a chance to practice the strategies found in the self-help/business guide that they're currently reading. So I get a lot of business cards, overly firm handshakes, and guys paying earnest attention to my inane answers to their equally earnest questions.

The fact that their positive attitude bothers me makes me feel like a dick. How can I be critical of someone for being into the shit that they're supposed to be into ? These are the pillars of the community and I should be looking to them with admiration and gratitude for their efforts, but instead I find myself contemplating what they'd all look like wearing a ball gag in some rednecks basement or devising a plan to slip peyote into their double decaf lattes.

I think it stems from a combination of two factors. The first is that I don't have any interest in competing with the people for airtime, or with their enthusiasm, or their pride....they win. And the other factor is that they make me feel like I'm a douche for not being into the whole thing like they are...I recognize that's my issue and not their fault, but it does foster at least a little resentment and a ton of uncomfortable feelings.

So anyway, in light of all of that I just try to go to the meetings, keeps a positive attitude, be polite, and then get the fuck out of there.

Last night was the first "Back to School Night" of the year at the intermediate center, grades 3-6. For me this has always been "PTO has you hostage night" because you come to the school under the auspices that you're going to go meet your kids teacher, but while they have you the PTO uses the event to proselytize to the masses and pass around the hat. The difference this time is that instead of being the guy in the audience who has to hear 8 different people get up in the front of the room and go on about the ages/grade/teacher of each of their kids and how super totally wicked awesome the school and the PTO is....I'm now going to be one of those guys in the front of the room doing the rambling.

So I got home from work last evening and had an hour to spare. Anxious about the impending meeting I decided that the best course of action was to go for a run and get rid of some of the stress. I ran for about 30 minutes, came home, and showered. After I dried off and started getting dressed I realized that I wasn't totally dry. I took off my shirt, towelled off again, put the shirt back on and was wet. For one reason or another, the shower didn't take and I found myself 20 minutes from the start of the meeting and sweating like a pig.

I was starting to panic a bit, but I realized that my only hope was to relax and settle my system down. I started doing some deep breathing and trying to relax as I headed out the door with a shirt, tie, and towel in hand. I jumped into the car and drove over to the school with the air conditioning on full blast. When I got to the school, I turned all the air vents on me and toweled myself off and to my great relief it all seemed to be working. With the air still blasting I put on the shirt and tie, composed myself and started to walk into the school.

Two strides into the building I realized that the air conditioned deep freeze that I put myself through was only a temporary fix and as I started to walk into the auditorium I started to sweat at a rather unusual and I have to admit, repugnant rate. By the time that I sat down in my chair for the start of the meeting I look like I just swam a mile.

As if my life wasn't becoming complicated enough, just as the meeting is called to order the President leaned over and asked if I wouldn't mind making a couple of comments regarding the PTO ( which I know virtually nothing about) and then introduce the PTO Treasure ( who I regularly avoid because I'm not sure if his name is Chris, Steve or Scott). Two minutes later I was handed a microphone.

I turned around to face the crowd and without any fanfare went right into a very abbreviated explanation that I was new the organization, but would welcome any suggestions, and I wished them the best for the year. About a third of the way into those statements I could feel the first beads of sweat running down my cheeks, and by the time I wrapped up my bit, I could have used a snorkel. I'm sure I was quite the site.

At the end of my speech I looked over at the Treasurer and considered what his name might be. No luck. I mean, I'm a guy with pretty good memory. I can rattle of figures and statistics with unusual accuracy. I can recite people's phone numbers from years ago. I can remember with precision poker hands from two years ago like I was sitting there. But tell me someones name and it's likely that I wont remember it by the time that we've stopped shaking hands. I narrowed it down the Chris or Steve but that's about as far as I could go. I just simply handed him the microphone and sat down.

The treasurer stood up, walked to the podium and much to my chagrin said, " Hi, my name is Steve and I'd like to thank Flick for that heartfelt introduction".

I hate the PTO.

yikes

I just took a disc out of my James Brown: Live at the Apollo case and shoved it in the drive expecting to hear " Please, Please, Please" instead Hammersmaith Palais from the Clash starting coming out of the speakers. Not the most unexpected sound but as close to the opposite of James Brown as you can get.

If Urkle was white, that might be more opposite than James Brown, but for now we'll have to settle for the clash.

You be the judge.

coining a new phrase

The new phrase I just invented is:

" Happier than an Amish girl with a weedwhacker "

For those of you not from these parts, there seem to be a couple of exceptions that the Amish make in their pursuit to stave off advancements in technology. How they come about these exceptions is beyond me, but the two that I've seen somewhat regularly are letting teenage boys use chainsaws and letting teenage girls use weedwhackers.

And over the years, as I've ridden my bike through the Amish countryside, I've found myself coming upon some of these young ladies in full Amish garb, usually with a pair of goggles on, weedwhacking away. And in each of those instances the girls were blissfully happy and completely unaware of my presence or anything to do with the world around them.

These reasons for this can, and should be, speculated upon by scholars and armchair philosophers as I think it might provide some insight into the nature of man. But for me, I'm happy to settle for a new saying.

And on an unrelated note, if you might find yourself too grown-up to dig Merlot and French impressionists, you'll not want to look at this.



Thankfully, I still find myself pleasantly unsophisticated.

Sometimes you get the dove and...

Last night I was riding my bike down this hill at around 25-30 mph. It was a rural road with 8 foot high corn on either creating a bobsled-chute-like feel as I flew down the hill and around the curves.

About half way down I spooked a dove sitting in the high grass. In these parts, that's not unusual as there are a lot of ground nesting birds and you just get used to them going ape shit when you ride up on them.

What WAS unusal this time was no sooner had the dove popped out of the grass and started flying out in front of my bike, then this huge fucking hawk fell out of the sky...I mean completely out of no where, going 300 mph....and slotted in head-high between me and the dove.

Now with the corn as high as it was, there was really nowhere left or right for the dove to go, so the dove just started hauling ass down the middle of the road. Right behind the dove and closing was the hawk, and right behind the hawk, keeping pace, was me.

It was like being part of Mutual of Omaha's Wild friggin Kingdom.

Unbelievably and inexplicably, just as the hawk got to the dove's tailfeathers he started to run out of gas. The dove put in one more dig and opened up a little bit of daylight. Then the hawk, recognizing that he was losing ground, just broke off hard left and peeled away over the tops of the corn.

Pretty cool.

I have a hangover in my ass

This one is new to me. I think it must be from drinking on an empty stomach AND being on some whoop ass anti-biotics. Whatever the cause, it's horrible. But at least there's no headache.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I never post anymore. I couldn't take the pressure of coming up with shit to say and I was worried that too many people close to me were reading this thing and sooner or later it was going to bite me in that ass. I figured a good summer lay off and a couple of political youtube clips should chase off all but the most stubborn of readers.

< I'm going to interrupt this post to tell you that I just ripped the most ass-stinkiest fart ever. It smells sort of like old meat floating in pig manure. 2 seconds after I let it rip, the secretary walked in with my mail and tried telling me something. After 10 seconds of her talking and both our eyes watering, she just gave up and walked out. Whats a brother to do?>

Anyway, you'd think that after all this time I would have come up with something interesting to write but the bet two things I came up with started with " I once had sex with a girl who was so short..." and " this one time I got crabs..." neither of which is really worthy of a comeback tale.

In the meantime I'll share this picture with you. I'll preface it by saying that my kids have a skewed view on life in general, but an especially twisted perspective on baseball in particular. When I was a kid I'd go one...maybe two...Phillies games a year. We'd usually sit in like the 300 level right field at the Vet, under the decking. In that shithole of a place, that meant we were a good 200 yards away from home plate. We'd see the Phillie phanatic only a a distance with our version of mascot entertainment being provided by whichever guy in our section was the first to get falldown drunk and start wresting with Veterans Stadium Security. There were no games, no fun stuff and our chances of catching a baseball were about one in a billion.

The only time I can remember getting anything was the time that they gave everyone in the stadium a full sized baseball bottle-bat. That, predictably, was a bad idea.

< The police cheif just walked in. I told him straight up, " Dude, I just beefed so come in at your own risk". Understandbly he didn't stick around>

Anyway, despite all those hardships, anytime that we had an opportunity to go to a game we were over the moon. Our excitement was only overshadowed by our appreciation for our parents, grandparents, or whomever was taking us to the game.

Now lets fast forward to 2007. My kids get to go to the games at least a half dozen times a summer. I'd say that 50% of the times that we've gone they've gotten something. Part of it is planning on my part, but the other part of it is this sick run of luck they're on. So far we've gotten prize packages, t-shirts slung into the crowd, a free pizza, gifts walking through the door, foam baseballs, and of course the coveted foul ball.

So on tuesday night, my parents decided to take TheBoy out to a Trenton Thunder ( Yankee AAA affiliate) game. Different team, different people taking him to the game, different friggin state. You'd think that the boy would, like any other kid, just go to the game, eat some cotton candy, and watch some baseball. Well, you'd be wrong. Here's TheBoy out on the field calling the start of the game.

I'm sure you've seen this

but Im posting it anyway. 1499 prisoners, one transvestite, and a Michael Jackson video...how can I NOT post it ?

more of the same

Don't play cards with this guy

great game

http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games6/gameindex/the-return.htm

Chocolate Rain

You can call me when you catch yourself humming this on your drive home tonight and thank me.

WORD

lying sack of shit

***Yet Landis asserts, "There is no culture of doping in cycling. Yes, there are riders who dope, but if you look at the pool of 5,000 or so pro riders in the world, the percentage is small. There are stock traders who cheat, but you don't hear people say there's a culture of cheating on Wall Street."***

First off retard people do say that there's a culture of cheating on Wall Street. That's what all those CEOs going to jail is about. What a maroon.

And there are NOT 5000 professional cyclists in the world. Not that many who are making a living and not that many who are subject to drug testing. That's just a load of shit that's up there with " the dog ate my homework" and " my extroneous testosterone is from drinking whiskey".

Landis is a lying sack of shit.

He doped. He's had teammates who have doped. And he damn well knows that there is a culture of doping in cycling. So statements like this remove the last little shred of credibility or even dignity that he held onto after threatening Greg LeMond.

Yeah, he cheated. But I think all of us could have understood and forgiven that.

But fuck him for lying about it. And more over, fuck him for using his family and friends to extort money out of people who have the decency to believe that someone wouldn't look you in the eye and lie.

He dared us to Believe again ( I mean the capital B) in Stage 17 and we had the rug yanked out from underneath of us. Now he's challenging everyone to believe again ?

Go rent Less Than Zero , that should tell you all you need to know.

Go work back bedrooms for your drug money Floyd, you aint getting any from me.

Lindgren's Prop Bet

Erik Lindgren wagered $350,000 that he could WALK 4 rounds of golf, carrying his own clubs, from the black tees ( 7200 yards), in Nevada in the summer, and shoot under 100 all 4 rounds.

the video

you guys are going to so hate me !

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz

WSOP coverage

Thomas Wahlroos, who’s apparently a bit intoxicated, walked up to Roland de Wolfe’s table and knocked his chips all over the place. Afterwards, he then snuck up behind Phil Hellmuth and proceeded to knock HIS chips everywhere, only Phil was in the middle of a hand! This is in a WSOP event!



This incident happened during the $5,000 No Limit Hold'em Six-Handed event again, and involved Finnish poker pro Thomas Wahlroos, son of one of the wealthiest people in Finland.

Just after Hellmuth won a huge pot in which he called an 80k all-in bet with pocket aces and watched them hold up against his opponents pocket sixes, he went walking around the tournament area looking for someone to tell that he was most likely the new chip leader. He found Thomas Wahlroos.

An obviously intoxicated Wahlroos, who was apparently taking a break from the $1,000 Seven Card Stud Hi Lo event, eagerly listened to Hellmuth tell him about the size of his stack. At the end of the story he blurted with feigned incredulity, "chip leader? No way. Let me see." He then proceeded to follow Phil to his seat, and upon arrival swept the patiently and lovingly built chip stack (trust us, we watched him) into a jumbled heap of colors.

Wahlroos proceeded to crack (mainly himself) up, while several onlookers smirked and others just stared at the unfolding scene.

Phil yelled for the floor, calling for Thomas to be escorted from the building.

problem solved

A few years ago I had a friend who liked to take my dog for a walk.

I don't know why a grown man would want to walk around with a shit-zu, but that's really not the point of this story. Just accept the fact that this some something that he enjoyed doing.

One day after he and the dog came back I felt compelled to ask him what the fuck he and the dog did while out on their adventures.

" Nothing really. We walk around. She sniffs at stuff. She takes a piss and a shit and we come home."

" She takes a shit ?", I suppose that should have occurred to me but I NEVER walked the dog, and couldn't stand the thing enough to ever consider its digestive habits.

" Well of course she does."

Realizing that when ever the two of them went out the door the only thing they took with them was a leash, I had to ask, " Well if she's taking a nightly shit and I don't see you walking out of here with a bag or anything...what's happening with the shit ?"

" What do you mean ?", he asked as puzzled as me.

" I mean, where do you put the shit ?"

Now he really looked baffled, " Put the shit ? I don't put the shit anyplace. We walk around, the dog sniffs around on someone's lawn, takes a shit, and we move along."

" Wait a second. You mean to tell me that every night you leave her with my dog. Walk around the neighborhood. And have my dog shit on one of my neighbors lawn and then just walk away ?", I was astonished.

" Yeah. Is that a problem ?"

" Yeah its a fucking problem. And when one of my neighbors comes up and throws a pile of shit against my house its going to be a big fucking problem." I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

" Hey man I'm sorry " he apologized, " I had no idea it was a problem."

I drove the point home, " No seriously. You can't do that. If I caught someone's dog shitting in my lawn I'd be furious. They're going to drive me out of town...seriously...you gotta stop that shit."

" OK OK OK, I got it, mellow out."

Two days later I'm coming home from a night meeting and here he comes walking down my street with the dog. No bag, no scoop, no nothing, just him and the dog.

He greeted me with a big wave and I asked, " Hey were you just out walking the dog ?"

" Yeah"

" Well did the dog take a shit ?"

" Yeah.", he answered undeterred.

" Well I don't see you with a bag." I accused.

" A bag ? For what...the shit ? That's gross. I aint walking around with a bag full of shit."

Now I was furious, " Well what part of our discussion the other night did you NOT understand."

" No man, it's cool. I got what you were saying and I took care of it."

I was surprised, but relieved, " You did ? Whew..... How ?"

" Yeah I thought about what you said about shitting on people's lawns and you're right man that ain't cool. So when we were out tonight I'd let her sniff around a bit...and the right when she squatted to take a dump I picked her up and hung her out over the curb. BOOM, she shit right there in the street. No turds on the lawn !!! Problem solved !!!"

The 5 year old

I may have mentioned before that my youngest daughter is insane..but in a good way.

The other two need attention while she can play happily on her own. The other two need validation while she needs to be told that she can't drive a car. When the other two hurt themselves on the swingset in the backyard they run to their mother crying...and when she hurts herself on the swingset she gets the gas can and tries to set the entire jungle gym ablaze.

She has an imaginary friend named Chloe. Yesterday we were driving in the car and out of no where I got whacked in the back of the head with a rolled up coloring book.

" WHAT ARE YOU DOING !?!?!", I hollered.

" That wasn't me, that was Chloe ! ", she offered defiantly.

" Well tell Chloe to CUT IT THE HELL OUT !", I yelled.

" CHLOE !", she mimiced, " CUT IT THE HELL OUT !!!"

Then after a pregnant pause she said, " I'm telling Mom that you made me say a bad word"

One day she was going on and on about "poop". "Poop" this and "poop" that. I could tell the entire time that the only reason that she was saying it was because she knew she wasn't suppose to. Every time she said "poop" she'd look over at me to see if it would elliceit a response.

After a while I finally, calmly said something, " Honey, you know you're not suppose to say that word."

" Why, is it a bad word ?", she asked.

" Yeah, so just stop saying it."

Surprisingly she just stopped and went on doing some other stuff. "Hey, I'm getting good at this parenting thing", I proudly thought to myself.

A little later in the day she walked up to me and said, " Dad, can I ask you a question ?"

" Sure honey"

" When you go to heaven, do you see all your friends and family who are dead ?

" Yeah...sure"

" And then when you're up there with everyone, do you have fun ?"

" I suppose you do. "

" Well what do you do ? Are there games to play ?"

" Yeah, sure....every game you ever wanted to play is up there !"

For some reason this pleased her and a smile broke out across her face, " OK ! Is there music up there ?"

" Absolutely...every song that was ever made is in heaven."

Her smile grew and she continued, " How about food ? Is there food in heaven."

" Oh yes dear, all the food you eat..every food of every kind !"

Now her grin was ear to ear, " Cakes ? Pie ? Everything ?"

" Yep, everything."

Now her tone changed...She still had a big smile on her face but her voice and posture transformed from that of a 5 year old into that D.A. from Law and Order.

" So if you're up in heaven, running around with you friend and eating all this food you're talking about.."

" yeah ?", I answered a little puzzled at her tone.

"...sooner or later you're going to get very full aren't you ?", at this point I almost expected her to ask some imaginary judge if she could treat me as a hostile witness or something.

Uh, sure"

" AND when your belly gets full you go poop right ??!!"

" I suppose "

" AHHHH HAAAAAAAA !" and she jabbed her little finger at me, " SO YOU'RE SAYING THAT THERE IS POOP IN HEAVEN ???!!!"

" yeah..I suppose...but..."

She didn't let me continue, " and since everything is heaven is GOOD...then POOP MUST BE GOOD ! "

" no...you...but..", I stammered like a fool.

" AAAANNNNNNNDDDDDDDDD....if POOP is GOOD, then there's nothing wrong with saying POOOOPPPPP right ?! POOOP POOOOOP POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP !!!!! "

When she finally stopped we both just stood there staring at each other. I was equal parts stunned and pissed and had no idea what to do. All I could think was, " That little bitch just set me up ". We stood there like two gun fighters, toe to toe both frozen in time.

Finally she broke the trance... "Come on Chloe, lets get outta here." and while I stood there wondering what the hell had just happened, she spun on her heel, turned 180 degrees, and skipped away singing a little song.

taking a risk here

I problably shouldn't be posting stuff like this, but I've gotten increasly tired of having this pointless conversation with wives of my friends or women in my neighborhood.

The always come to me and ask, " What do you think my husband would like for " his birthday/fathers day/Christmas etc etc.

Then they usually propose stuff the varies from the mediocre to the really interesting. Actually, now that I think about it I've been really impressed with some of the stuff that wives come up with and I'm amazed at the ammount of time that many of them put into coming up with great gifts. I've seen them rent sports cars, arange golf outtings, send them to fantasy camps.

I think all that effort makes the situation even more frustrating for me...and the source of my frustration is that the answer to the question is so simple. It doesn't require a lot of thought. It doesn't require a bunch of work. It doesn't require a lot of planning.

Ladies. What your man wants...what all men want...for any time or any occassion is universal....men want oral.

Seriously. Oral. No wrapping paper necessary. Oral and be done, it's as simple as that.

Pass it along.

sage advice

" Hey man I'm starting to get worried."

- why's that

" Because I'm drinking like 2-3 beers every night anymore."

- yeah...so ?

" So I went to take some ibuprofin today and I read on the bottle that if you consume 3 drinks of alcohol a day that you should consult a doctor before taking the medication. I think it must fuck up your liver or something....anyway, the point is I think I might have a drinking problem."

- drinking problem ? Nah. It sounds to me like you have an ibuprofin problem. My advice...take asprin.

John Eustice

John Eustice is a nice enough fella I suppose. He's helped promote bicycle racing, he's been around a while, and he has some decent concepts and ideas.

But as a bicycle race announce....no let's broaden that considerably...as a sports announcer in general, he's totally unbearable. He's really the worst ever.

Here are a few of the foundations of any Eustice announced event.

The Italian

Regardless of the circumstances, John has to let the audience know that he can speak Italian. At first this was not that obvious as the first few winners of the Philadelphia race happened to be Italian. But over the years, John has had to go further and further down the results in order to find someone to showcase his bi-lingual skils. Hey John, we get it...bueno...or belisimo...or whatever. When you're interviewing the mechanic of the team who's Dutch rider got third in order to slip in a couple of words...maybe it's time to let it go. Save the showboating for ordering Linguini at dinner.


The Misidentification

This was epitomized perfectly in last Sunday's race when John spent 3 minutes butchering an explaination of the sport of cyclo-cross in honor of a rider that he identified as " cyclo-cross star Tim Johnson of the HealthNet team".

When he finally took a breath someone must have clued him in and he politely reidentified the rider as Amber someone or other who was on a solo break in the woman's race.

My first thought was, " what tipped you off John ? Was it the distinctly different colored jersey or the fact that Tim Johnson doesn't have a giant pair of tits ?"

The numbers

The numbers....ohhhhh the numbers. Eustice spews out numbers like a retarded Rainman. If one number is good enough for John then five numbers has to be better.

" T-mobile has 3-4-6, up to 7 riders at the front of the field."

He's like a bingo caller.

" The field is reaching speed of 20-22-24-30.....34 miles per hour and when your going 20 to 24 and up to 30 or 32 miles per hour, that's tiring"

B-13...O-64....BINGO !

The comparrisons

Cycling is like poker....cycling is like baseball...cycling is like cooking...cycling is like boxing.....and it goes on and on and on....

And while that, in and of itself, doesn't seem all that bad, consider the fact that in none of those instances does he ever make the analogy stick. For instance,

" Cycling is like football.....like football on a field that 800 yards....with 8-10-12 teams...all fighting and pushing...and that's why Lance Armstrong struggled as a young cyclist"

A football game with 10 teams ? And 800 yards ? Seriously...WTF are you talking about ? And as for Armstrong, the guy won a tour stage, the tripple crown, and the world championships all when he was barely old enough to drink the champaign. Fuck, according to this anology Armstong should be coaching the Eagles.

And finally the coup de gras

The final call

As a set-up to this point I should mention that an overriding principal to any Eustice announcement is that fact that his volume and inflection does not alway coincide with what's happening. Sometimes he emphasize a WORD in a sentence THAT HAS no significant to what HE'S trying to ephasize...while other times he just gets all excited and draws your attention to something that's really mundane..." LOOK AT THAT RIGHT THERE..HE'S SHIFTING !!!!"

Much of the above comes togeather at the greatest of all Eustice moments...the final call. As the riders charge toward the finish John works himself into a frenzy like an epileptic dog who's been slapped with a bloody steak. Some time around 300 meters to go he just starts screaming semi-coherantly at the top of his lungs. Typically he'll pick a rider or a team, I should add regardless of whether or not their in the race at the time, and just go with it.

" AND HERE THEY COME DOWN THE STRETCH AND IT'S TEUTENBURG LEADING THE SPRINT....TEUTENBURG...TEUTENBURG..TEEEEUUUUTEEEENNNNBBBBUUUUURRTGGGGG......TEUETUENEUTHDSIEGNEITHVATGIANWTGIIBBBBUUURRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG...............and Sara Uhl wins....with McRae in second and Thompson in third."

the ONLY reasonable candidate - seriously

if my kids..

..want to play games with me, they better be prepared to bring it...cause i don't lay down to anyone.

Ric Flair knows what I mean...

Do you think...

....the Jesus ever got turned down ?

The Bible is filled with stories about how he put the band together. How he went around and called on guys and they dropped everything and started following him.

But do you think that the bible left out any parts where it might not have gone so well ?

I mean with all due respect, he was asking quite a bit. I could see him rolling up to some guys and saying, " Hi, I'm Jesus. What are you guys up to ?"

" We're going fishing."

" Well I am the fisher of men "

" You're going to be a fisher of kicks to the head if you don't stop bugging us !"

Then again Jesus was a charasmatic dude, so if anyone would bat 100% I suspect it would be him.

Dr. Flick

I once dated this girl who was a nursing student. She was mostly a pain in the ass, but she was really good at the sex thing, so of course I was smitten.

On one Thrusday evening I had designs on taking her out, getting her drunk, then doing my best to talk her into coming back to my place. It was really quite the plan. The only catch was that she had a project to do at the computer lab with the other students in her class, but that I could roll over around 9 pm and pick her up there.

At nine I strolled into the computer lab to find a gaggle of frantic nurses-to-be. They had been working on the project for hours and apparently it hadn't gone well. Worse yet, it also became apparent that whatever issues they were having were putting my chances of getting laid in jeopardy.

The project they were working on was a computer simulation that required them to move a sick patient from 11,000 feet in elevation to 3,000 feet without killing the poor guy. To this point, they had been unsuccessful. Desperate to help my own situation I asked if I could give it a try.

The way it worked was that you'd stabilize the patient then click a button that would move him down 1,000 feet. The computer would then indicate if the patient was alive, dead, or somewhere in between.

Seeing as I didn't really know what I was doing, I just started fill the dude up with everything in the medical kit. Vasodialators, vasosuppressors, morphine, whatever...the bastard was getting down the mountain and I was going to be sitting in a bar with a cold beer and then figuring out how to undo a front clasp bra, one way or another.

So I clicked the button...

11,000 feet...no problem.

10,000 feet things started to go screwy....I jacked him up again... clapideral, nitrogylcerine, some more morphine, a shot of wild turkey, whatever..

CLICK for 9,000 feet....alive !!!! Majorly fucked up...but alive.

And so it continued 8,000.....7,000....6,000 each step of the way and with each click the computer would respond that the patient was hanging on by a thread....

At 4,000 feet I had to use the paddles on him.

You could cut the tention with a knife and beads of sweat formed on my forehead....I GOT A HEATBEAT BACK...more drugs...something...anything...I was shaking...so close, yet so far away, but I pressed on powered by the cheers of the small crowd that had formed behind me and by the thought that I was surely due a blowjob if I could just pull this last bit off.

I reached out a nervous finger and clicked enter.

3,000 feet.....ALIVE !!!!!! The room went crazy with cheering nurses-to-be, there were hugs all around, and a got a kiss that, if indicative of things to come, promised a very bountenous evening ahead.

In the middle of the furvor , one mousey looking girl walked over and tore off the print-out of the entire exercise that they were to turn in to the professor. As she riffled through the pages of dot-matrix laden sheets her eyes got big and she started for clamor for everyone's attention.

"Wait, wait, wait, hang on.", she tried to speak over the din.

She looked like a little kid who came down the stairs at Christmas morning and suddenly realized that his family being Jewish meant that there'd be no presents. She turned her gaze directly at me, " When you started at 13,000 feet..what was the first thing you did ?"

" I dunno, I think i gave him some oxygen and a shot or something..you're the one with the shee.."

" NO !", she cut me off abruptly and the room when silent, " I don't mean what's the first treatment you game him. I mean what was the first thing that you did when you sat down at the computer ?"

" Ahhh, I dunno..whatever..I think I hit go."

A collective groan coincided with everyone stealing paniced glances at each other and then they all began dejectedly looking at the floor...on the far side of the room one girl started to cry. After a moment everyone started walking back to their computers.

" Wha ?", I was stunned. I looked to my girl, " Wha ?". It was all I could muster.

She had an expression that I'm not sure that I had every seen before or since. It was equal parts sadness, distain and embarassment, but with just a tad bit of sympathy. I also got the sense that the sympathy was the only thing holding her back from driving staples into my head.

" You see, " she spoke with great effort, " the first thing that you were supposed to do was make the patient sick."

" He wasn't sick to begin with?"

" No, you have to assign him an illness. He was heathy at the top. "

" Well then...how did he almost....but I had to.... the paddles", I was starting to catch up now, " Oh......OH !"

"yeah," at this point she wasn't even making eye contact anymore.

" So I guess this means-"

"-yeah."

" Um, oh ok. I guess I'll...well...you know", and I shuffled out the door. I'd have happily traded places with the sick guy...paddles and all.

I might actually pee my pants

Which reminds me of this post last July
Heart attack man

Long ago, before the Flick children, before my current job, before I knew better, I may have sampled the weed now and again.

Typically what would happen is that I would be meeting up with my younger brother, who was in college at the time, and he would go about helping me "take the edge off”. As this was a prohibited activity as far as Mrs. Flick and my parents were concerned, this would often involve very complex and contrived scenarios to get us out of the house long enough to take care of business, get some gum, get some Visine, and then nervously reintegrate ourselves back into the family function. We were like the James Bonds of stoners.

In retrospect it was really far too much work, but at the same time I think that was half the fun.

After one particular escapade that was cut short, my brother said to me, "Here take the rest of this and put it to good use," and handed me the ragged remnants of a hand rolled “cigarette.”

About a week later on a Friday evening after a particularly stressful week, I thought that it was time to put the plan into action. The main problem was that Mrs. Flick was at home and does NOT in any way approve of said activities. So I immediately went into 007 mode. While she sat in the living room watching TV, I offered to cook us up some dinner. I pulled out a big kettle and started boiling up the spag. As she watched TV and I stirred the spag, the plan was put into motion....

Me: So how was your day, dear?

Mrs: Oh it was ... (while she talked I ran out to the garage, busted out the J, lit it, sucked as hard as humanly possible, held...held...exhaled...ran back into the house)...... ....and then we went out to lunch.

Me: OH WOW, that's great (stirring the spag). Where did you go for lunch?

Mrs: Oh we went over to the Olive Garden, the wait wasn't....(out the door again...lighting and sucking like I was trying to get a milkshake through a cocktail straw...huge breath....hold it....hold it...getting light-headed...blow...run back inside...stir)..........and the desert was terrific.

And this continued for like 10 minutes. Her talking, me running out to the garage, power smoking, and then rushing back in to pick up the conversation.

Finally, after a few minutes I realized that I was ripping high. I don't mean normal high, I mean that I was having a hard time figuring out how to use the ladle to stir the spaghetti. Remember I was a very infrequent user, a rank amateur if you will. In my frantic haste to get the job done, I may have...no make that I definitely overdid it.

So as I'm standing there, trying to speak, trying to stir, and trying to keep my head together, it started happening. The "IT" was my heart. It started going nuts....BOOM.............BOOM.....bababababababababababababab......long pause.....BOOM BOOM BOOM.....bababababab…

In retrospect, it's no wonder. In a 5 minute period I had taken about 10 HUGE breaths and held it as long as I could AND I had run back and forth as fast as I could from the kitchen to the garage 10 times both way. Drugs or no drugs my body had to be wondering what the hell was going on.

And so it continued...babababababab....BOOM......BOOM BOOM....

I started to panic..."OK, dude.... you're having a heart attack.....what did they tell you in boy scouts....hmmmmm....oh, I'm supposed to lay down and elevate my feet.....oh wait that's for shock....fuck....what do you do for a heart attack....OK check your left arms...that shit's cool.....OK....maybe if I lay down and put my feet in the air I can get all the blood to my heart. YEAH! That shit will work, I'll get all the blood to my heart and that will chill it out."

So I lay on the kitchen floor and put my feet up on the counter...taking long and slow breaths.

The whole time this is going on Mrs. Flick has no idea. From her perspective we're having a nice conversation. And seeing as I don't want to draw attention to my stone-assed heart attack situation, I tried to carry on the conversation as normal as usual.

The problem was that since I was laying on my back (having palpitations and trying to remember if I had made out a will) the tenor of my voice must have changed, bouncing off the ceiling and into the living room. This caused Mrs. Flick, who was relaxing on the couch, enjoying the beginning of her weekend, to look up curiously.

"Why are you laying on floor?"

"Ummmm, because.....ahhhh....now don't over react...but I think I might be having a heart attack."

"WHAT!?!?!??!?!?!??!" Mrs. Flick leapt from the couch and rushed to my side. “YOU’RE HAVING A HEART ATTACK? ARE YOU SERIOUS?"


"Yes,” I answered. The tears were starting to well up in my eyes...I was too young to die... “Honey, I love you."

"I'm calling the ambulance.” Now we were both panicked...she grabbed the phone and held my hand.

"Honey...just in case I should black out..."

"Yes?"

"Well...one of the first things that they'll want to know..."

"Yes?" She was dialing and trying to listen to me at the same time.

"Well they'll want to know if I've been on any medications."

"Right?" She looked at me sort of puzzled.

"Well you see....you have to tell them....for my own safety...you'll have to tell them that I may have just ...you know....smoked a bunch of marijuana in the garage."

She stopped dialing.

"YOU'RE NOT HAVING A HEART ATTACK, YOU ASSHOLE. YOU'RE HIGH." With that she stood up, threw the phone at me, and walked back into the living room leaving me lying on the floor like the idiot I am.

A dozen years on and I'm still not allowed out of sight with my brother, and we rarely have spaghetti without me getting at least one disgusted, disapproving look.

this guy has my vote

Brief Overview of Congressman Paul’s Record

He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.

He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.


He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.

Congressman Paul introduces numerous pieces of substantive legislation each year, probably more than any single member of Congress.

surprised that there's anything on the internet today besides this

From http://kevososlow.blogspot.com/

its all about the flow

Oh rickey you're so fine....

For all his accomplishments, you'd think snagging a foul ball in the stands would be small stuff for Rickey Henderson. Hardly the case.
Henderson, who caught a foul ball Monday at AT&T Park, where he was watching the Mets play the Giants, kept the ball instead of handing it to a young fan.

“Everybody was asking me for the ball,” Henderson said Tuesday, according to the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. “I said, 'You're not getting this ball. I always wanted to get a foul ball. This one's going on a shelf at home.' ”

The young fan didn't go home empty-handed, though, as Henderson signed another ball the kid already had.

Henderson, 48, joked that his catch in the stands shows he's still got the skills to play the game.

“Showing 'em I've still got good hands. The ball found me I was so quick.”

splain this

In the grocery store snack aisle why are the bags for the pretzels transparent, and the bags for the totilla chips tranparent, but you never see potato chip bag that you can actually see the contents ?

Do you think that made a traparent bag and what they ended up with was so hideous that they said, " We can never let the public see something so terrible " ? How bad can it be ?

I ask because I just opened a bag of Tostitos nacho chips and they came in a non-see-thru bag, which seemed odd.

It it possible that Totitos, after offering up nachos as a healthy alternative to the chip, has now switched gears and trying to make the nacho see more 'unhealthy'. Is this a portent that being a slob is coming back into style ? If so, does this make me a trendsetter ?

move over Bubb Rubb

hodgepodge....

....can't I can't spell potpourri.

In the last week or so I've...

- had a fat old man charge me like he was going to tackle me then pull up short and make threatening gestures. That conversation ended with me saying, " You can either leave or go to jail."

- Slept in my van for a couple of hours because I forgot my house key and didn't want to wake up my wife. For those keeping score at home, hypothermia beats out 'angry wife' 100% of the time.

- Mildred ( remember her ?) called up asking me, " what's up with the flying spheres that are zooming around in the sky at night. Is the government up to something ? " She also let me know she was concerned about some guy who was following her to the newspaper stand who, " walks like a gunfighter and has round hair where his forehead should be." Mildred son is out of town so she's a little lonely.

Here's a list of words that the guy across the hall from me uses instead of the regular English words that the rest of us use:

* AK LEAST for at least
* GEN-U-ER-LY for either generally or genuinely...we're not sure
* PICKS-T-CHURES for pictures
* I (pause) DRATHER for I'd rather
He's also fond of the words "caddyywhapus" and " rectallinear" the later which sends me into fits of laughter like a 5th grader.

You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around...

Groucho Marx said it best

Out of the blue I got a call last night, " Some of the teaching staff and parents were talking and we're wondering if you'd be interested in being Vice President of the PTA ?"

Given what you've read on the blog, you may find yourself sitting there with a bit of a surprised look on your face. IMAGINE HOW I FEEL !

I wrote PTA up above, but it might be PTO. If there is a difference I wouldn't know. Harper Valley had a PTA, I remember that from TV. I've also heard PTO thrown around from time to time. But the point is that it's not like I'm an active member of the organization. Why they selected me I have no idea...hell, I don't even know how they know who I am. Random draw perhaps ?

In any event, I immediately have to call into question the integrity of any organization that would choose me to be a member. What's wrong with those people ?

I was stunned enough to ask the guy for a day or two for me to think about it. On one hand, I always enjoy doing anything that's going the help out my kids. On the other hand, I'm really not sure that I'm capable of getting though a term without... shall we say...an incident. On the ....errrr...third hand, if I had a third hand, having me flip out on someone at an elementary school function would offer up some interesting stuff to write about.

This one I'm going to have to ponder for a while.

This morning's conversation

Mrs. Flick: What we need around here is a Libby Lu's.

Me: What's that ?

Mrs. Flick: It one of those places where you have a birthday party for little girls where they have makeovers and put on a fashion show.

Me: That's horrible. I can't imagine anything worse.

Mrs. Flick: You're ridiculous...name one little girls who doesn't like playing dress up ?

Me: JonBenet Ramsey ?

In case you were wondering

Abe Vigoda is still alive.

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

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.

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.

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".

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"

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.

I'm empty

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

Rainman ?

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.

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.