King Kong ain't got nothing on ME!!

It’s hard out here for a paper pusher. So I’ll get right down to business then start rambling and then cut it kind of short because my four finger typing takes a lot of time and most what I have been writing about is kind of boring to even me.

(Clears throat)

Today was a glorious day, a momentous occasion occurred and I was there to witness it and partake in the joyous celebration. The meatyballs mobile was in the neighborhood of my work and I arrived on time to get my fill. Today totally made up for me missing out on the other food truck. I wanted to get like four or five of the grenade versions of this magnificent delicacy but he was running low and I had to improv when I got up to the truck and it was my turn. I went with the Torpedo (the larger version) Meaty Balls Sandwich and a Grenade (the smaller version) Buff Balls sandwich. For dessert I had the White Chocolate salty balls. This guy knows what he is doing and I think I will follow his truck and try more of the different meatball sandwiches he has to offer. The Grenade version offers you a chance at getting a taste of what the Torpedo taste like and coming in at the size of a healthy slider I have to say Bravo I will try all of them. There is a true food revolution going on in this city and I think that I will have a happy summer chasing down all the food trucks. Looks like I will not be packing away my big boy pants for the summer. The dessert is phenomenal if you see this truck run to it. You get a great meal at reasonable prices plus the guy is cool, and not pretentious. If you work with people like me get ready for a solid 4-5 hours of jokes about balls in mouth and any other balls joke you can think of, totally worth it.

I have no interest in royalty. I am glad that that prince or duke or whatever he is found a girl out of his league to marry him, good work join the club you, me and all the other nerds I know have pulled off the same trick. Growing up I didn’t have that Princess Di stuff jammed down my throat. Royalty in my house was Elvis Presley. My mom was/is coo coo for cocoa poops for that old fat dead bastard. But her infatuation rubbed off on me. I have made the trip to Memphis to see his crib. In fact I remember a story that I think I heard there about why he was kind of cool. I’ll give you the short as I remember it version. He was getting ready for a party but was feeling lazy or something and kind of dragging ass. His wife or whoever told him to get it in gear all of these high class ritzy people were arriving and he needed to get down there and entertain them. Elvis walks over to his dresser grab a handful of money and throws it out the window. The people see money and start scrambling and fighting and trying to grab up the money. Elvis turns to the person in the room and says, “those people ain’t high class” BAM!! Plus any guy that supposedly gives away Cadillacs the way he did has to be pretty cool. Plus the kid could sing a pretty sweet song. You get the point the royals of England do nothing for me. The only castle I have interest in is White Castle. The only kings I ever enjoyed reading about growing up were Latin and their weddings were not broadcast on national TV. See how tough I am. I don’t get the infatuation with those crazy people across the pond

Wow two white castle references in one sitting. Lets call it a day. Get some tea and skrumpits and enjoy the weekend proper style

'Butt Pie' is a sequel to the bestseller 'Butt Cake.'

I ate lunch with some of my co-workers today. We were trying to go and eat off the Gaztro-Wagon that was supposed to be right by my work but we missed it. Somehow it was there for twenty minutes. By the time we got there at 12:30 there was no sign that the truck was ever there. So as we all stood shivering outside we decided to go and just grab something to eat at the tall building that was right there. I allowed myself to get excited again because the cafeteria of this building is like a food court in that there is like 8 different kinds of food you can get. I knew that I was going to get the taco salad in the edible bowl. Well we walked in and most of the selections were shut down, there was a brief moment where I thought the whole cafeteria was shut down. I decided that I would walk over to a place and get a freaky fast sub and then meet people back in the dining area. I got my sub freakily fast and walked back and met up with my co-workers. My sub kind of sucked. But as we sat BS the subject came up regarding how people do not believe I am a poor eater since all they ever see is me eating my stuff brought from home; fruits, vegetables, sandwiches you know stuff you bring from home. People thought I never eat junk food. If I had been drinking something I would have surely squirted it out of my nose.

Somehow I have tricked every single person I work with that I eat smart, what they do not know is when I am out of work I go crazy. But it was cool to hear that they think I’m this super healthy person. I won’t go into too much detail since I just talked about this yesterday but the exact opposite is true. I LOVE bad food.

I think I am going to try and make dinner tonight. Nothing super fancies just an attempt at making food. I have made it this far in my life never learning to cook.  Of course I have made Ramen Noodles, prepared microwave meals maybe here and there started the water boiling for the pasta noodles but I have never truly cooked a meal. I have kind of helped get stuff ready but most of the time I’m just a visitor in the kitchen. It’s not even that I’m one of those macho men that feel cooking is woman’s work, I just never learned. My job has always been doing some prep work and then come in and do the clean up. I need to start trying to cook, my brother is a big experimental cook, and my wife is the same watching shows and finding recipes in books. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind being the one that sits on the couch once in a while.

Oh and it’s cold out there. On the way home from work last night I destroyed my rain pants that I have been wearing which keep me kind of warm. But last night the pants finally tore beyond repair. This morning as I rode to work my legs was FROZEN, but at least there wasn’t any of that rain business. As a cyclist I have to ask my friendly drivers a favor. Please do not get so close to the back of my bike I’m going as fast as my little legs can go, also please to do honk your horn at me. I ride as a commuter we can share the road I am positive of it. I want to get home too and Lincoln is only so wide and as we both know these city streets are torn up.

I think you can tell I have lost focus. I’m hungry again.

Senor Fatty McButterpants

I feel like I weigh 350 possibly 420 pounds. Usually over the winter I will pack on a few extra pounds. I believe that the world refers to it as winter weight. But usually in the spring I start getting active again and I get my stuff back in order. I tried to do this 100-day challenge thing but I fell of the wagon and back into my horrible eating habits. I stopped getting my workouts in here and there and have become lazy and lethargic. I need to kick stuff back into gear. I have promised my wife that I would be better about eating but I see myself not keeping that promise. I want to be good, I want to eat right I want to exercise enough to counteract the calories that I consume.

The problem is I LOVE to eat. I love to eat junk food. I love to eat pizza, burgers, BBQ, various fast food places, pizza, Garrett Popcorn, movie popped popcorn, Chips Dip, Salsa, Portillo’s, oh and I like to drink. You see I watch shows about food eating challenges with the same interest that most guys watch sports. I watch the shows and daydream of vacations to that spot to see if they were right in the way they describes how delicious the food was. I DVR shows about where I should go and try food. I hunt out other people who think they like to eat as much as I do. I constantly think about food, when I wake up in the morning I’m already wondering what’s for dinner. If I’m being honest I’m already wondering what I’m going to have for dinner the next night as I’m finishing the currents night’s dinner. As I type this I am wondering where the best Fried Chicken can be consumed, so far my best taste of fried chicken has been some place in Iowa.

I think you get the point I love food. I don’t weigh 350 pounds but I could. I guess the good thing is over the passed five years I have also started to like being active, like a lot. So I’m glad warmer weather is supposedly coming. I need to start getting back out and enjoying the beautiful city I live in. But this rain is not working for me. It makes me LAZY. All I want to do is eat like I’m still hibernating and watch TV. I need to get active again or maybe more active again.

My work pants are all tight and uncomfortable and I am back into my polo shirts, which is my work equivalent of wearing sweatpants to work. I need to come up with a plan to put into action ASAP. But we all know I’ll fall off when I’m vacationing. Yuck. I’ll just look into a new obsession. That’s what happen when I got into running. Maybe I need to recommit to that supplemented with some cycling. If I could throw the swimming in there man I would be doing all right. Then I could get back to eating whatever I want. You know Calories in Calories out.

It’s rough being the Vain S.O.B. that I am.

Almost time for lunch, my second favorite meal of the day. Who am I kidding they all my favorite.

If the guy I was then met the guy I am now he'd beat the shit out of me. Those are the facts.

There are two scenes from movies that I really like that stick out in my mind as well performed pieces. One is the scene from the movie SLC Punk. If you have not seen this movie then read no further because this is a spoiler alert. The scene I’m talking about is when Stev-o comes down to wake up Heroin Bob the day after the party when HB OD’s. This scene gets me every time because I can feel the pain that comes over Stev-O as he realizes that his friend is dead. It’s brief but cool. You watch him go from his every day waking him up routine to realizing that his friend that never did any drug harder than alcohol is dead of a drug overdose. The height of emotion that he reaches in that 30 seconds is great, as he is crouched over his friend crying his eyes out, the nasty snot running out of his nose and off his face, the point where he finally yells out “who’s going to be my friend NOW” that pure sense of loss, being utterly alone, it gets me every time I see it. It also makes me respect Matthew Lillard just a little bit, if only for how good he was in that movie.

The second movie is a little more popular, and there are actually two scenes that when looked at in combination really stand out. Two parts of this movie I love is when the two main friends are talking. There’s a point where Will and Chuckie are talking and Chuckie says that thing about how they are best friends and all but if in twenty years Will is still living here coming to his house, working construction, that he will F’n kill him. He backs it up saying it is not a threat he will kill him. That back and forth they have is golden. He also tells him a short story of how every day he pulls up to his house and there is that brief moment when he walks from his car to Will front door where he hopes today is the day he won’t be there. Well as we all know how the movie ends Chuckie walks up to the front door and looks in the window and he can tell that Will is gone. The look that registers on his face is probably some of the best acting that Ben has ever done. Great stuff. I actually like the whole story of that movie. I like even the back-story that Matt and Ben wrote it together, shopped it and then went on to star in it. Their ability to do that had me chasing that same dream with my friends for years.

I’m not done chasing that dream by the way. I’m just on a brief sabbatical. Sometimes you got to work a real job for an extended time.

Who knows maybe by doing this I’ll get better at writing. Yeah I doubt it too.

Stay dry out there kids and be nice to the idiots that ride our bikes even though it’s raining, I may seem foolish out there but I’m also happier than you.

Fact

totally neat totally sweet

I’m not so bad. I make some bad choices along the way. There are times when I stumble and there are times when I fall flat on my face. I’ve been doing it long enough to know that as long as no one gets hurt it was all in good clean fun. Long as no property gets damaged; as long as no feelings get annoyed life will be smooth sailing. I can’t do it all the time but every once in a while I can let down the wall and let you see the weird little things that I come up with in my head. I can ramble on and on for hours at a time and I realize you might want to sort through he crazy things I say. Most of the time I’m not making any sense at all. Most of the time I’m more confused by myself then you could ever be. I have a trillion thoughts going on at all times. I have the best of intentions most of the time. But a lot of the time I am selfish. I tell you the truth, the best version of the truth that will not make you still want to talk to me. I will contradict every single thing that I say. I will not remember what I have said in the hours that I finally decided to let you peek into my mind. There’s a good chance I’ll shrug it off and pretend I never said it in the first place. I’m kind of a weirdo like that.

But I found someone who listens to it all. Someone who doesn’t just discard it all as bullshit. Someone who calls me to the table, someone who understands that sometimes I‘m just saying things to hear what they sound like out loud. Someone who challenges me to be a better version of the person I am now. As I said I’m not so bad but there is definitely room for improvement, spring is here kids. I’m in love with a woman that kicks my ass. I try to keep the mush out of here because I could tell her all of this but sometimes I just need to say it. She’s an awesome chick. There are a lot of cool things in my future. There are some obstacles in our way but I’m positive we will reach them. I just have to be patient and realize there is someone on my team I can talk to.

She’s my wife. I apologize but I think that this is going to be a cheesy week worth of annoyance if things move smoothly all week.

Workday is almost over. Monday takes no prisoners. All business all the time.

Two tahs

put the needle on the record

I have always been obsessed with music. One of my favorite memories of growing up is spending afternoons listening to my ma’s 45’s on the old record player in the dining room in the house I grew up in. It was something fun to do on days when it was too rainy to go and spend all day outside running and playing to exhaustion. I would sit there playing DJ for myself all day long realizing that the music I was listening to was from years before I was born. I actually thought it as brand new music. All of those songs from the 50’s 60’s and 70’s were so freaking awesome. I still love flipping to the oldies station on days when life is kind of crappy and a smile spreads across my face when I realize that I’m singing along in the high pitch voice to “walk like a man” by the Four Seasons or was it Frankie Valli.

Later in life I was tortured by my dad’s LOVE of country music, well temporarily tortured by it. After hanging with him long enough I started to love it. Who could not get behind the Oakridge Boys singing about “Elvira’ or Kenny Roger singing “the Gambler” or even David Allen Cole singing “you never even call me by my name” Years later I would go to a bar that had both country and western music and this song would drive the people insane with happiness singing along.

Shortly and rather briefly I was influence by my older brother’s love for heavy metal with just a creepy enough dash of the glam metal that freaked me out but also lured me with the talks of how Twisted Sister “was not going to take it” and Metallica was still rocking out.

I tried to branch out on my own for a while and found and experimented with what I think or maybe thought was rap. Too Live Crew being nasty as they wanted to be and Bell, Biv and Devo warning me of a girl being Poison Poison and to never trust a big butt and a smile and of course the overweight Lover Heavy D.

From there as I talk about all the time I started listen to what I refer to as punk. So you know how that goes. My music taste is still evolving I guess. I still love many kinds of music but now some of the bands that I used to like a lot I now can’t stand. For example I can’t listen to Dave Matthews Band anymore. For the longest time I thought they were great. If you were flipping through my case logic you would be surprised to suddenly come across DMB section. I don’t recall how I ever started to listen to them but they annoy the crap out of me now.

Well due to rambling I never got to my point and that was as obsesses as I have always been with music I always wish I would’ve learned to play an instrument. I think that would have been cool. But I have no coordination and the attention span of a goldfish.

Got to get back to work. Enjoy your weekend, eats lots of candy.

Oh and be nice to the earth. It’s her day.

just can't seem to get it right today

So I have been getting my balls kicked in at work. All day yesterday I had to deal with fixing mistakes that I have made over the passed few months. I despise making these mistakes because it negates all of the good accurate hard work that I actually do. I had tricked myself into thinking that I have been doing good here but then all the mistakes come at one time all on the same day. Error after error poured in. I tried to keep my head up but it really got to me. Because now I have no leverage when I go and try and ask for a raise. I can see it now the look on the faces of my boss as I ask for more money in my paycheck. All the hard work negated, Bullshit my friends. I’m pissed and a little sad. I need to escape. I need to sneak to my next miserable job. The trick will be to get paid more than I do now so that I basically get my raise that I will not get here. But you know what, no one will hire me, that’s the facts. Time to work on my Shawshank Redemption

But my current depression reminds me of a thought that I have been chewing around which is no matter how great you are you will always be reminded of your biggest failure. Growing up my ma was the best cook; every single meal was a home run. Plus she always had it ready at dinnertime. Perfectly prepared ready to eat and some how no matter how many friends we brought home there always seemed to be enough for everyone to eat and enough for my dad to bring the next day for his lunch, mad skills I tell you. But one night she made this meal that every single person in my family hated. It was nasty; the only ingredient that stands out was possibly wet bread. We called it Bam Boody.  Not sure if that was really what it was called but that is what my ma claimed it was called the night she tried to feed it to us. No one ate it no one could swallow it, not even ma. She has made thousands of great meals since but every once in a while when we are all together someone brings it up as the worst meal ever. That meal will always come back to haunt the poor lady no matter how many great meals she makes. Curse of the Bam Boody

More whiney and self-pity

I need this cold bullshit to stop. I’m sick of it. Just like every single other person I want the feelings of spring. I’m going on vacation next month and it is suppose to be HOT there. Luckily my wife is around to keep me from slipping into some weirdo depressed state. So I guess I need to stop whining.

Which leads to my last unfocused post.

Do people still meet in dark loud bars? I know at least three people who have met, courted, and eventually married a person that they met through a dating web site. I often wonder if things would have played out different if my wife would have found me on a dating website and taken a chance on me. It would have had to of been her finding me because just like in real life I beleive that women have it easier in the courting process.

I’m just lucky enough that her friend was dating my roommate, without something putting us on the collision course I don’t think we would have ever met if I were approaching her without introduction at a bar that she would have given me the time of day. I was/am mostly a weirdo and probably would have spooked her. Maybe soon I’ll tell you about the second time I met her. … that was ummm intersting

my lips bleeding BERT

my dad never really watched much television when I was growing up. To the best of my knowledge he never went to the movies either. Growing up he was always fixing something on our house. As a youth it annoyed the shit out of me, of course now I realize I wish I ‘d paid a lot more attention because the things he was doing there at that house was amazing. When my dad would watch TV he would watch This Old House, it felt like torture. All I wanted to do was watch whatever crap I watched then maybe like Dukes of Hazard, Misfits of Science (I loved this short lived show) or Knight Rider maybe TJ Hooker whatever you get the point I had no interest in whatever it was Norm was fixing because it had the potential to translate in hours of a project that I would eventually have to help with or hinder progress on. These days I wish I had taken interest in the home repair. Sadly now I find myself watching all these shows about home repair now and think my dad could have done it better. When I finally get a house I can’t wait for him to come over and discuss possible upgrades he can help me do instead of hiring out some clown to do it. The house hunt has been put off until March of 2012. My wife and I are going to take a drastic change in order to make our house owning dreams come true. In September we will be moving to a cheaper rent place so as to save funds over the winter. More details to come as our time in Yuppie-vile comes to end. So this summer we will take advantage of as many fun things as possible. I’m sure I’ll talk about them here as the days go by.

The weird thing is this post was supposed to be about the movies that my dad did like. In particular the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. Which because he loved it so much made it one of my favorite movies growing up. I remember being a little pint sized version of myself sitting there watching this movie with him every single Christmas season. Good times. I wonder if this movie started my obsession with movies that laid out the butterfly effect. To me it only makes sense right?

Well I’m losing focus and I really need to get back to work. Three hours left and I am tired as all get out. I can’t seem to fall asleep and stay asleep all night.

There’s a creepy old guy that has been staring at me from all the reflective surfaces that I walk passed. But I guess that can also be covered another time

He must have thought it was white boy day. It ain't white boy day, is it

I’m on edge today for some reason. Nothing has happened and my weekend was actually kind of fun. But today I’m in a clouded funk. Maybe it’s just that I rode into work today while getting pelted in the face by hail. Maybe I’m just tired of it constantly being this crappy cold weather. Maybe I drank to much coffee and didn’t really sleep as well as I would have liked to last night. I’m having trouble focusing on my work, which is not good. I’m trying to work ahead of schedule so that I don’t get too far behind when I go on vacation next month. Maybe I’ll go and get a run in over lunch and that will boost me up and also help the workday go by a little faster.

Saturday I went out for the first time in a while, I decided I would drink Bourbon based drinks all night. It went surprisingly well and I didn’t get hammer headed and cause problems on the home front. So we’ll put this one in the win column fort sure. We hung out in Wicker Park with one of my wife’s friends and her husband. I started the night at the Exchange with an Old Fashioned we were the first two people in there so it was really cool. Her friend showed up and had a drink then we walked down the street to our reservation. We ate Indian food, which was ok, but when the bill came I could not believe how much we had spent. The drinks alone had my jaw on the floor making up almost half of the bill. The service kind of sucked too and before we knew it we were being asked to move from our table to the bar to finish our drinks so they could seat the next party. Not cool but whatever, I’ll never go to that place again. We walked around trying to find a place and continue talking and have another drink. Here’s where you can tell I was getting old, I didn’t want to go anywhere that we had to stand. We almost went to the Violet Hour but the line was out the door and down the Damen. We settled for this other place, which was mediocre at best. The service here was even worse and before I knew it the Mrs. and I were back on the Ashland bus heading home. Pretty cool.

So yeah I’m madly in love with my wife today but since reading about that is boring for strangers, so I’ll sum it up with she gets me. She makes me laugh and is simply amazing. She does things for me that make this craptactular life a little more bearable. The future is sure to be bright with her by my side.

Oh an don’t ever watch that movie with Donnie Darko and the princess Diary girl, Totally not worth it, I watch bad movies and this one was terrible. I never cared for either person and was totally glad when she Od’d on the heroin toward the end while he turned tricks with his cowboy boyfriend in the tent. Wait that would have made the movie a lot better whatever Go watch True Romance if you are looking for a great romantic story. Something for everyone in that there film.

jerry jerry come to my house. I will give you coke and aspirin

The job that I perform on a daily basis does not take a whole lot of how do I say this umm brains. So this job is perfect for me. It is a fairly easy job; I take information from one-person input it into a system and then report it to another person. Then I take the information from the person I reported it to and send the results back to the person that I originally talked to. The only part that is rough is the fact that all the information is number based. Also I am just one part of a process. The number grabber if you will. Unless something goes wrong then I am the most important part of the process. If my focus was a little better and I wasn’t constantly daydreaming, thinking about what’s for dinner, or trying to figure out what to do with my life I could potentially be good at this job. Next month will make it eight years that I have been with this place. It has been a bumpy ride that has included three moves, a Friday group layoff, and cuts in my pay and benefits plan. At the end of the day I am just happy to have a job, I have tried looking around but no one wants me and I refuse to start over at entry level of another company that will totally just suck. The perk of this place is I like almost everyone I work with. Sometimes when I imagine being somewhere else I can’t imagine not hanging out with these knuckleheads for the nine and ten hour days that we put in. Don’t get me wrong if a better opportunity comes my way I will jump at it. I am still in the waiting process for that other thing. But I refuse to talk about it too much for fear of jinxing it.

So today I am thinking of things I would like to accomplish. The simple things that would just go in my make people jealous at parties type things.

The fist thing is I want to be one of those people that say you are watching WTTW Channel 11 Window to the World Chicago, or whatever it is they say in that commercial now. Number two I want to be on Check Please! How cool would that be to sit at the table with Alpena and two other locals talking about my favorite thing EATING?

Third I also think I want to try doing a Yoga/Pilate class, I need help with my stretching I know it sounds ridiculous but I very rarely stretch and with the amount of running and cycling I do I’m tightly wound. But I don’t want to drop a lot of cash on this endeavor (me and my yuppie exercises) Fourth and the one I can see myself accomplishing soon is I think I’m going to buy that new bike this weekend. My old one is too old and it’s making me sore. I have put up with it for two years but I can’t take it anymore. Plus I don’t want to take public transport to work, I love that I ride my bike every single day. If you can do it I suggest it to all.

Have a great weekend. I heard that Screeching Weasel Fest thing that I was crying about has been cancelled in the month of May. I guess that SXSW thing really threw a monkey wrench into all that. (Shrugs) Guess I was crying in my beer over nothing after all.

I wonder if they take applications for Check Please online,

Must Run. Two Tahs!

I can't help it if I wasn't born with a cool name like Dickie

In a younger version of the slightly potbellied adult that I am today I LOVED punk rock/ska music. At least my version of what punk rock/ska was in the 90’s. Looking back at those days of going to concerts fairly regularly still brings a smile to my face. There was a time when the Mighty Mighty Bosstones were coming to town to play at the Cabaret Metro and my group of lazy friends did not buy tickets. As the day of the concert approached MMB was in heavy rotation on the cassette players of all my friends cars. Talks of how it sucked so bad and if only we had bought our tickets was thrown around pretty regularly. So finally I spoke up and said why don’t we just go and see if we can get tickets from someone off the streets before the show. My suggestion was quickly tossed to the side with a snide remarks of where would we get tickets from that wouldn’t totally jack up the price from $10.00 to like $20.00. No one would go with me; I quietly made a pact with myself to get into that show no matter what. So the day of the show I woke up early and went down to Wrigley Ville to get my ticket. Doors to the show were scheduled to open at like 6:30 pm; I was in Wrigley at 9:00 am. It was a rainy crap ass overcast day, nothing too exciting. I spent the day walking up to anyone who walked near the entrance of the Cabaret Metro begging for at ticket. Of course the whole day I had no luck (cue Disney music) but then at like 6:20 someone was walking in and just gave me the ticket. FREE. Their friend had blown them off and they were super pissed. I was so excited. The show was AWESOME. I had never been the kind of person to go anywhere by myself. But this show changed me; it helped me come out of my shell. I spent the night singing at the top of my lungs, slamming into fellow fans in the pit, crawling up on stage before swan diving back into the crowd. It was what would turn out to be the third best show I have ever been to in my life. When I finally left the Metro I called one of my friends and told him we HAD to go to the show the next night at the Rave in Milwaukee. We did and it was awesome. A group of 9-12 of us crammed in two cars and went and saw the show. I’m not sure how we all got tickets to that show but we did and it was cool. Not as cool as my experience the night before but still cool. Those were fun times. Oh and we were not even old enough to drink. Sober at shows acting like maniacs. WOW!

My favorite concert of all time also included Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Flogging Molly, and I think the Tossers at the Riviera for a St. Patrick day show. I actually think that was the last show a big group of my friends ever went to.

My second favorite concert was Screeching Weasel playing the final show at a place called McGregor’s in Melrose Park I think. It was the last punk show that was going to take place there. They ended up doing an early and a late show. I ended up going to the second show. I hobble out of that show dehydrated from jumping around and going crazy for the whole show. I can’t remember who opened for them but I know it was when they released the album Wiggle. The added bonus was one of my oldest friends had been in the fist show. Somehow he ended up with Jughead’s hat, the Figment Hat that you can see him wearing on the back of the Boogadaboogadaboogada Vinyl album cover. I still have that hat to this day. But as I type this I wonder if the hat that I have held onto for all these years is really that hat. I never second-guessed him about swiping it off Jughead’s head. Hmmm.I guess I’ll have to ask my old pal the next time I talk to him

F@#k you and your cat

There are groups of people that I just can’t stand that I have been running into lately that really annoy the crap out of me. The two main offenders are cat people and people who smoke the marijuana. If you combine those two groups then it is even more annoying. If I hear one more story about how someone spends a couple grand on Kitty Chemo sessions, blood transfusions or some other cat based human medical procedure I’m going to knock the joint out of the person’s hand, smack them in the face and tell them how they can get a brand new cat for basically free. I hate cats. I used to think maybe kittens were all right but you know what they grow up to be cats so no your kitten is stupid and annoying too. They are a useless animals they do not need you at all, if you die and are laying on the floor that cat will start to eat you after a while like maybe a day into your recent passing away. I’ll just say it they are plain evil; they change regular people into weirdoes. No one wants to hear how Mr. Mittens just doesn’t like company and that is why he sits in the corner hissing at you. I don’t want to see pictures, watch video, or listen to a story about the wacky thing your cat did. Also when I come over for foods please don’t think it’s ok for your cat to paw up the dips, chips, or other potential food that will ideally make it to my mouth. I don’t think it’s adorable I think it’s disgusting. I have hyper crazy allergies; I don’t want your cat to come sit on my face, lap, and walk around my feet. I see that he knows I hate him that’s what he’s torturing me put him in another room; better yet I’ll stay at home.

Secondly I get it smoking pot is so cool, everyone does it and it’s not really a drug and blah blah blah. I guess I’m just a square, I don’t like it, and I hate hanging out with people that do smoke weed. I hate the look that comes across a persons face when I tell them I’m not interested. I just came to have some beers, maybe a few shots but that’s it I have no interest. I don’t need to be explained to how pot is good and it comes from the earth and everyone smokes it. I don’t care. I think it’s more the whole attitude that goes with pot smoking. The long silences, the hunger, the listen to jam bands, the slowed reactions. Yes funny on film but try having a serious conversation with someone that has just smoked some KIND. Ughh. No thanks. I’d rather just smash my head into a wall. I never appreciated the whole hippie ness that goes with the weed lifestyle. You can keep it. I guess the thing that annoys me most is so many people just assume that I’m totally down with the weed. I’m not; I just talk slow and stupid naturally. So quit bogarding that and…. what of a shiny whatchamacallit. I’m hungry man

good morning heart ache, your like an old friend come and see me again

Work has been ass kicking busy. Not Kick ass busy butt kicking me in the ass busy. The thing I have wanted to talk about in my little corner of the web is heartache. It is probably the most powerful of the emotions. Yes I’m sure love is up there and has a power all to it’s own but if you have ever felt the ache to your very corners of your heart then you know what I’m talking about. If you have ever been properly smashed to pieces I’m sure you have your very own heartache story that every once in a while you take out of you’re hiding spot and just examine the hell out of it. You polish it you let it roll around in your hands you probably let the tears well up in your eyes, sometimes you’ll dress it up and make it into a whole different piece of misery. When you’re done with it you brush it off put it back away in the box and hide it like your very own treasure. That is why I feel like it is way stronger than love. With love you carry it around you splash it in people’s faces. You make people sick to their stomachs as you go on and on about your happiness. But with misery a great story of how your heart was broke into a million pieces you have something special there. You have stories to compare with he other broken hearted people, even though you know that they have no clue how bad it truly aches. A good heartbreak will hang out with you and justify a pretty intense drinking binge. A true case of misery will make people nervous around you. The thing is if it is true heartache you’ll always carry it around with you. Even in times of extreme happiness it will always be there, just waiting for the proper time to rear its ugly/beautiful head.

There’s a reason there are so many songs, poems and movies about it. Sure there are love versions of these songs, but when is the last time you stayed up a bit too late because a love song was totally talking to you. Ahh beautiful misery, it builds character it changes the way you make decisions. Powerful stuff. I have to get back to work; I’m gearing up to go on vacation next month for about half the month. So I’ll be working my balls off these next few weeks.

Have a great week kids, go out and find your next heartache who knows what she’ll inspire you to do.

veronica's definition of love is hate

The night that I met my wife it was a celebration. The film company that I worked with was having a premier party at a bar that I have spent a good amount of my life in. The premiere was going to take place the next day at the Three Penny Movie Theater and we were pre-selling tickets. The idea being that if our drunken fans bought tickets from us the night before and were either too hung over or overslept the next day and missed the screening we would at least have collected the donation toward the cause. The night was hectic to say the least. I paid my money for our party package and promptly started drinking PBR like it was going out of style, add a few shots here and there and I’m sure I was in rare form when I was introduced to this girl. She was a friend of the girl my roommate at the time was dating. When he told me she had invited some of her friends to the event I shrugged it off, if here friends looked anything like her then I wanted nothing to do with them.

I will say that when she walked in she totally didn’t look like she was in the right place, she was over dressed and super beautiful. I used the bump and roll technique, stop and ask her if she needed a drink roll away and go and socialize. Each time I saw another chump talk to her I’d walk up C-Block whoever it was then walk away. You never want to seem over interested. At some point the booze clouds my mind but I remember getting into a “stay away from her” “conversation” with one of the other filmmakers. He was always funny than I was and he sometimes had an uncanny ability to have girls laughing and swooning for him at weird times. Somehow I got her phone number, I spelled her name wrong because I thought it was super funny to make her name sound a little more ethnic. (it wasn’t funny a all) Somehow she slipped away into the night with promises of meeting up with everyone at Carol’s Pub. She never did. The next day as I woke up I scramble for my phone. The panic of had I called her rushed through my veins, I looked at my phone and saw one call placed at a late hour. I calmed myself down and started getting ready for the premier. She was going to be there, I remembered making her promise in that way that drunks MAKE you promise by repeating asking about it until the person escapes. So I knew I had to shake the whiskey and cheap beer hangover off, plus I had to be ready for a full day of screening our masterpiece at 3 penny. We were showing it twice. She didn’t make the first screening, not many people did. But the second screening was packed. She didn’t make that one either, I figured she had seen how much of a maniac I was and had decided the easy out. I erased her number from my phone. Later while eating burritos with a small group of friends my phone rang. I didn’t know the phone number; I decided to answer it anyway. To my surprise it was the girl, she was to hung over and tired to show up and was surprised that I had made it. During this conversation she explained that as I walked her out I made her promise to come the next day or I’d be mad. She also explained that I had called her 65 times…in a row. Sometimes leaving weird messages and somewhere in there telling her I thought she was amazing. We didn’t know when we would see each other again my brother was getting married the following week and then there would be the Southside Irish parade. We agreed that maybe we would meet up then but we would definitely talk again soon. That night I wrote her number down and hid it in my wallet. I was drinking and didn’t want to call her that night…. I didn’t either. There’s a whole lot more to tell in this story. Mostly boring and cheesy but kind of cool at parts I guess this is my version of that how I met my baby’s mama. We are not expecting children at this point. I’m wondering today if when we do decide to make a child if my swimmers will still be active. But that’s a totally different post. Now I need to get back to work. I’m a slow typer so this took a lot of time. This version of the story is as I remember it she may remember it differently but this is my secret blog so I get to tell of our relationship as I recall it.

so I creep yeah, I creep

so there is this guy I work with in my office that scares the crap out of me. Ever since the first day he came into the office I have been creeped out by him. He is a nice enough guy but something about him has always rubbed me the wrong way. He used to sit in the proximity of my cube and every once in a while I would get the chills as he would tells his stories of misery. There were times when he would ask me for help and before I knew it I was getting aggressive and mad and basically talking down to him. Each time afterward I would feel miserable and try to convince myself that the next time I would take my time and be more patient with him. But then he’d ask me something or I’d ask him to work on something and before I knew it I was red faced and doing that low yell condescending thing again. Leading people to refer to me as Major Payne like Damon Wayans in that movie. Which is kind of a dig at how dory when I would go from zero to Mad is less than 15 seconds

The thing is I have had patience for anyone else in the office. People that asked the same question over and over again, screwed up work or projects that I was working on, basically the same thing this guys did. Of course people did not hesitate to point this out to me. The crazy thing about working with the same weirdo’s for any stretch of time you generally get good at pointing out each others quirks.

The thing is this guy is broken; his life is literally in shambles. He is going through a horrible divorce; he has lost custody of his kid, and briefly had to move back in with one of his parents. He luckily found a studio at some divorcee apartment complex but this leads him to being broke like a week ahead of payday. But his life never gets better; something else is always falling apart for him. He tries to walk around and be happy go lucky but every once in a while you can see that life has just really swung back and kicked him in the balls. He tries to make friends here but everyone keeps him at a big distance. There was a time before he was hired on full time that people were campaigning for him to be let go. I disagreed and asked that he get to keep the job here. I was afraid that losing this job would be the thing that finally breaks him. If he lost this job he would be on the news, either as a person that “fell” in front of a train or car, or that “accidentally” killed himself or worse yet he would be the guy that comes back to the office looking to even the score. If that is the scenario then I would be scared because I’m sure I’m the one he would look for. So I have tried to be nice which usually ends with me just getting frustrated and sad for the guy. Sometimes he gets that look in his eye and you have to wonder is to day the day he’s totally going to go crazy. All I can say is I hoper not, I hope his life evens out and things turn the corner for him and he is one day able to look back at these days as his dark days.

I don’t have it in me to be his work buddy, but each day I say I’m going to be nice to him. Most times that means not saying anything to him at all, sometimes it’s just a hello. But then I’ll negate all that by saying something mean to him. Are there people that just bring out the worst in those around them? I don’t know, this guy does it to me, mostly because I’m scared of him, mostly because he seems to be an example of a series of REALLY bad decisions. I’m sure I’ll talk about him as this thing progresses, this is just more of an introduction into creepy guy I work with, and if I remember in the future his name will be C. G. Creepy Guy.

I spend a lot of time judging other people; I really wonder what people think of me. I’m sure I’m better off not knowing.

L-I-S-T that spells the LIST

Man I had like 14 things I wanted to talk about today. But as usually I spent so much of my day trying to whittle the list down that now it is almost the end of my short and I am so ready to get the heck out of here. It looks raining and miserable outside so that means it will be a fun ride home.

So yeah,

1.It’s my cousin’s birthday; my grandma’s birthday both fools.

2.The streets of Wrigley were crowded with people at 630 am happy boyfriends with sleepy eyed girlfriends. I don’t have time for this. But…

3.One day I’m going to go on and on about how boys like to drink more than girls, even the girls that “like:” to drink.

4.Michael J. Fox

5. Movies about Time travel and the butterfly effect

6. Empathy and Apathy

7.Friends having babies

8. Having a taste for booze at weird times

9.My hatred of seafood and people trying to force it on me

10.The hunt for bikes

11.Future housing concerns

12.My donut and munchkin party this morning

13.The best April fools joke ever played on me

14. Fear of turning out like this one guy I work with

14 things. That’s like three weeks worth of material.

I need to get home so I can sit in front of the TV till its time to come back here.

I am super exciting. Like watching paint dry and grass grow exciting