Beginnings, endings, and other "ings"

Beginnings:
I was a groomsman at a wedding two weeks ago, and a couple (whom I introduced to each other, oddly enough) began their lives together.  It was a lovely ceremony, and everything went smoothly.  I think.  I say "I think", because we (me and the other groomsmen) showed up three hours before the (afternoon) wedding for pictures, etc., and me and my fellow groomsmen immediately started drinking.  A lot.  Like....A LOT (what can I say?  We're a festive and merry bunch).  Needless to say, by the time the ceremony rolled around, me and my fellow groomsmen were absolutely piss drunk.  The boys and myself all wore our sunglasses during the ceremony because we thought that was funny...and, more importantly, we didn't want the folks to know how shit-faced we were.  Funny thing is, I'm sure the fact we were all wearing our sunglasses kind of gave that away (our shit-facedness that is), which completely defeated the purpose.  Also, apparently I made a speech during the dinner, and in retrospect, I have no idea what I said.  I was told it was heartfelt, tender, genuine and appropriate, you know, me being me, so that's about all you can hope for in situation like that, and I (as far as anybody will tell me) avoided the pitfalls of inappropriate jokes, mentions of groom's ex-girlfriends, and unsolicited opinions on the sanctity of marriage from the perspective of a divorced guy.  Furthermore, as the night wore on, nobody slapped me that I can remember, so I'm guessing my behavior wasn't all that scandalous in the end, so for that, let us give thanks.  I did get left without a ride home at the end of the evening, which basically meant I kept drinking with the help long after everybody left.  Yes, I did finally manage to finagle a ride home, and the evening finally ended without major incident.  HOWEVER...

...I woke up with a world class hangover, and all of my text message history had been erased. I have no idea what that means.  So, if any of you know me, and you received some truly bizarre early morning text that night, well, apologies, as I have no idea what happened text-wise for about an eight hour period.  Upon reflection, I AM beginning to think it is probably a good idea that if you plan on having a cocktail or two or fifteen, it's a good idea to hand over your phone to a sober driver (phoner?), just in case.  Nobody needs to drunk text for any reason, no matter how great an idea it might seem at the (chemically impaired) time.  Trust me on this one.  Also, when I woke up later that morning, it looked like a Smurf puked in my sink, and this caused me some concern.  After pondering this mystery for a few seconds, I realized there were blue cupcakes served at the reception the evening prior, and that cleared things up nicely, as the correlation suddenly became obvious, Sherlock that I am.

Me and the boys getting the afternoon started properly:


Endings:
Single again.  What can I say?  I have about as much success in relationships as an alcoholic does in guarding a liquor cabinet.  And, let's be honest, in a situation like that, you really cannot blame the liquor cabinet can you?  That's the best analogy I can come up with at the moment, but it seems oddly appropriate, and it is safe to say I may want to take a little time out and reflect on a few things...and cease blaming the liquor cabinet.

"ings":
As in freez-ing.  Went to Reno, Nevada, to see my Fresno State Bulldogs take on the University of Nevada-Reno in a football game with conference championship implications.  I also took my two daughters with me.  We had a nice time, and took the scenic route back to California to see Lake Tahoe.  A good time was had by all.  However, as exciting as the game was (Fresno State won), we froze our (collective) asses off during the game.  Here's the temp towards the end of the game:


And although we were appropriately attired...:
  ...it was still DAMN COLD.  Like, I lost the feeling in my toes, and my nose ran like the French from the Germans (ha!  Sorry Francophiles...but that was too easy).  Oddly enough, a strange thing happened though...my girls, who are always complaining about being cold, actually enjoyed themselves and had fun.  Yes, actual fun, and are coming with me to the regular season ending game two weeks from now.  You just never know how something is going to go over with a couple of women, and sometimes they leave you pleasantly surprised (I am also guessing the fact that they got to stay in a fancy casino hotel and were taken out to breakfast/lunch/dinner all weekend also helped their disposition...but still, props to the kiddos).

Alrighty, not the best blog I've ever written, and I'm not going to edit it for quality of content, syntax, spelling, etc., because I am sleepy and really kind of don't care (to be honest), but it is a little something to tide me over until I can get sufficiently irate enough about something to want to purge it here via the written word, or, if I ever finish my latest song idea and ever get it recorded so I can share it, um, here.  In the meantime, I bid you known and unknown strangers alike...adieu. 

Icons

You can TRY and be this cool. However, you will FAIL.

Starbucks, Bruno, Rush, and Teenaged Daughters

So, I have bitched plenty about Starbucks over the years and, thusly, I figyre (yes, I know it's "figure", but it was originally a typo, and I liked how it looked, kind of "Ye olde merry Englishe" style...so I left it.  As you can see, I am an iconoclast of the keyboard) "why stop now?"  So here goes:

The Starbucks drive through (or is that "thru"...at least according to the signs.  I'd like to believe the signs are misspelled  for brevity's sake...or at least to save on the expenditure for additional plastic.  However, I have a gnawing suspicion that it was a corporate decision to appeal to the average American who has the reading comprehension of a 7yr old.  Actually, that's probably not fair...to 7yr olds).  The drive through (or "drive thru" as it shall henceforth be known) is intended for quick service, i.e. (or is that e.g.?), get your coffee and go.  It's a great idea...in concept.  If you're like me, and want actual coffee, it would work flawlessly.  Place your order at the sign advertising their wares, and drive up to the window.  In the time it takes you to drive to the window and proffer up your payment, they have poured your coffee and added cream/sugar (if that's your particular predilection).  Again, this concept works great....in theory only.  Here's why: the coffee.  If you, like me, order actual fucking coffee, the drive thru works seamlessly...its perfection of movement so precise it would make a Swiss watch maker come in his pants (too much?  Eh...point was made regardless).  But, again, that's if you oder COFFEE.  Apparently, when the average American thinks "coffee", they don't think of a hot liquid beverage with a roasted bean base, they think of a thick, viscous, sugary, gooey, carmel, fudge, mocha, whip cream, and cinnamon chip filled liquid dessert that takes fifteen fucking minutes to concoct (funny word concoct.  Say it with me: "concoct".  Yep...I just chuckled).  When THIS sugar infused gut bomb is ordered, it mires the drive thru queue and defeats its purpose.  If you're the sort of person who likes dessert for breakfast and enjoys starting their day with a 700 calorie thirst quencher that you know takes a team of twelve to assemble (no doubt you need the caloric intake because you're on your way to your job of plowing a 700 acre field all by yourself, or, you are preparing to row across the Atlantic like some Thor Heyerdahl wanna be), you obviously have a few minutes on your hands.  So, if that's the case, why in the hell are you in the drive thru?  Go inside and order your drink and leave the drive thru to those of us who need a caffeinated adrenal infusion and are actually in a goddamn hurry.  Since you're a trans-Atlantic rower, you should have plenty of bounce in your step to park and exit your car and make that arduous trek across the parking lot and walk into the Starbucks to grab your team crafted insulin buster.  The rest of us would really appreciate it as we quickly grab our hot, liquid- bean, pulse amplifier and get on with our lives.  So, in conclusion, I propose Starbucks has TWO drive thru's: one that says coffee only, and another that says "non-coffee drinking coffee drinkers here...and Thor Heyerdahl too".  Think about it Starbucks.

-I was watching Saturday Night Live this weekend, and was left with one question: who, in the hell, is Bruno Mars?

-While watching I Love You Man a while back, I was struck with a truism that was a crucial element in the movie: all men, no mater what their musical tastes, have a soft spot in their heart for Rush.  We may be fans of alt, indie, country, metal, R&B, hip hop, jazz, classical, progressive, etc., as our first and foremost musical choice.  But, put Tom Sawyer on the stereo, and well, we'll be grooving right along with it.  There's something in the male DNA, a Rush chromosome if you like, that compels to have varying levels of affinity for this band.  I have the greatest hits album to prove it.  Whether it's the drumming pyrotechnics of Neil Peart, the bass shredding of Geddy Lee, or guitar textures of Alex Lifeson, we will uncontrollably air-guitar/drum the minute a Rush song is played.  We cannot help it.  In fact, if a Dr. Evil type was ever looking into turning the human male population into an army of controllable automatons, he'd figyre* out what it is in Rush's musical vibrations that is hard wired into the XY brain, and use it for nefarious purposes.  Maybe they could simply play a Rush song on a world wide public broadcast and formulate a plan for billions men simultaneously air drumming to be used as a weapon of mass destruction.  So there you go madmen of the world, your blueprint for world domination.  "A modern day warrior, mean mean stride, today's Tom Sawyer, mean mean pride..."  Muh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! (or whatever evil laughter looks like in print)

-Yes, I have 17yr and 15yr old daughters.  So, you may or may not be asking yourself (or "yourselves", should you be reading this is some sort of weird group setting.  Hey, I don't judge...I'm just saying...), what's it like being the father of teen daughters?  Well, it's like this: this photo (warning: it's not for the faint of heart) is the singular most succinct image I can think of to fully explain sharing a home with teenaged, female offspring:



What you are looking at is not, in fact, a partially decomposed marmot I found behind some shrubs in my back yard, but a rather foul plug of hair I had to remove from the drain in the sink located in my daughters bathroom.  I can understand a bunch of hair being in the SHOWER drain (of which I have removed many a time), but this was in THEIR SINK.  Unless they shaved their heads in the sink (and, judging by the hair currently on their heads, I am guessing they have not), I cannot imagine how this much hair got in there.  When I asked, they both sort of looked at me with a blank stare, before my oldest said her younger sister "sheds a lot."  To which her younger sister said, "Yeah.  I kinda do."  So, apparently, one of my daughters is (as I remarked to another a while back) part alpaca.  Needless to say, I had no idea she had genetically mutated on me.  Perhaps she can be a source of family income going forward if I can knit the occasional scarf from her (apparently) abundant coat.  That's me, always thinking outside the box....

*Yeah, I used it again...Anglophile that I am.  

Addendum

One more (see previous blog).  Food blogs.  These fucking things seem to dominate the blog world. People love to talk about food, photograph food, tell you where to go to get the best Azbekifuckoffistan kebob and baba ganoush.  Who the fuck cares?  Well, apparently a lot of fat fucking food addict Americans and hipsters drawn to obscure, brick wall, exposed pipe basement eateries filled with people wearing bowling shoes and Trilby hats who have never bowled or been to England (i.e. where the Trilby was invented, and, for that matter, where the likes of Paul Weller and The Jam made wearing bowling shoes cool).  Point is, it's food.  Get over it you pretentious assholes.  There's lots of good food out there, and it doesn't have to be obscure or hard to find to be good.  Hell, if I'm hungry enough, a PB&J sandwich with a cold glass of milk is almost enough to make me spontaneously orgasm.  No brick wall and exposed pipes needed ("exposed pipes"...there has GOT to be a dick joke there SOMEWHERE).  Anyways, if I never see another photo of some fucking alien looking Asian dish like this:



with somebody explaining "Duck pancreas with almonds and sea urchin eggs!  Sooooooo goooood!!!", I'm sure I'll still be able to live a happy and fulfilling life.

Random Bitch Session

RANDOM BITCH SESSION (sometimes pictures add a little spice to the diatribe to follow)


 Quick rants:

-if you're at the gym, and you look like you're hiding a children's wading pool under your belt, good for you. I'm all for self improvement. However, if you're hoarding the leg press machine all to yourself for forty-five minutes, your efforts are misplaced. Also, you're a selfish fuckwad. The 50 pounds extra of gelatinous goo you're carrying is not really being addressed by your pumping the quads. You may want to think cardio...and let somebody else use the machine. It's not a plate of nachos. You can share.

 -unfortunately, I live in the conservative capitol of the cosmos. And the gym mentioned above is all FauxFox News, all the time. So, being subjected to this Goebbels like propaganda somewhat against my will, I have a question: when in the fuck is Rush Limbaugh going to do us a favor and have that massive myocardial infarction we're all waiting for? The guy is seriously angry/stressed/hypertensive, fat and a drug addict. I mean, it's the holy trinity of imminent heart explosion. And yet, there he is, like a rolly-polly Fascist Santa Claus yammering away about...I dunno...I really wasn't listening. Something about Obama sodomizing a goat while reading the Koran to jihadists and threatening to make Medicare solvent? Anyways, the way he was sweating and spitting, I thought to myself, "Oh, fuck yes, this guy is going to full on aneurism (or heart attack...whatever. I'm good either way) right here on tv and I'm going to get to see it. Holy shit..am I getting a boner? I think I am! Come on Rush...let's see that aorta burst you goose stepping fuck!!!!" Needless to say, he didn't, so the boner never really materialized. Still...one can dream.

 -I'm sick of reading blogs about people and their artsy craftsy shit. I'm glad you made a hat pin out of some cellophane and bottle tops..but...yawn. 'Ya know? Entertain me. Be provocative. Nobody's on the internet for Martha Stewart. We want Two Girls One Cup (confession: I've never seen it and really have no desire to...just seemed like an obvious reference to make my point), Fail videos, porn, Fry memes, sports scores, and helpful hints on local eateries and watering holes (I realize "eatery" and "watering hole" also sound like porn, but I wasn't trying to be funny...just came out that way. Ha! I said "came". It's like I'm the Nipsy Russell (look him up) of the keyboard). So, um, yeah...if you're going to blog...don't suck.

-hipsters. Yeah. I've had it with them. I've been accused of harboring a bit of hipster within, and I suppose anybody who plays musical instruments and writes/records music is probably guilty of this to a point. But...come on. Enough with the beards. I've never seen so many (apparently) aspiring Forest Service Personnel...or Fleetwood Mac holdovers from the 70's.  Also, your choice of music, the bands nobody has ever heard of and I suspect, deep down, even you hipster guys/gals don't even actually REMOTELY ENJOY. Just because they incorporate a glockenspiel, banjo, and Sousaphone into the song doesn't make it GOOD...it makes it (usually) stupid and/or silly. Quit trying so hard. Cheap beer tastes like shit, vintage clothing generally has a hint of B.O. perma bonded to it you can never really get rid of, and WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH WEARING A WOOL BEANIE IN 95 DEGREE WEATHER YOU RETARD??? I could go on, but you all know what I'm talking about...and if you are one...knock it off and find your true self through some form of expression other than expressing your individuality by dressing like, and listening to the same music, as EVERYBODY within your peer/social circle. Expand your horizons. Trust me, it's OK to admit Session Lager (kinda my fave) tastes better than PBR (note: I have drank many a PBR in my day, but not because it was "cool" and "ironic", but because it was CHEAP and I was POOR. If this is your situation, then by all means, enjoy). When you can admit your obsession to strictly adhering to all things your peers and the local hipster neighborhood you live in have pre-determined as cool has, in fact, turned you into a narrow minded, myopic, douche bag...then the healing can truly begin.

 -Willtard Willard Shit Mitt Robme Romney...this guy strikes me as a serious sociopath. If they find some sort of weird sex/torture dungeon underneath his garage full of Cadillacs (perhaps this is why he's remodeling his La Jolla home?) I will not be surprised. That, and I secretly suspect despite his magic underwear-planet-inheriting-misogynistic Mormon belief system, the guy probably enjoys about 15 cups of coffee a day. I mean, this guy is wound so tight, is so manic, he practically vibrates.  I think he could weld a breach in a ships hull with the crazy beams firing out of his eyes. The fact that close to 50% of this country may wind up voting for him is not only sad frightening, but a pretty good indication that the end of the Pax Americana is near.

-I had more...but I ran out of steam as I realized I really could go for some cookies right about now, and lost my train of thought (again...adult ADD?  Perhaps...). So...cheers and all that.

Let them eat lobster! And melon balls!

OK, I know it may seem like I'm going off on a grocery store themed jag here (see last post), but, yes, I have another bitch about my local Save Mart. Here goes...it was my daughter's birthday party today (15th), and she wanted me to make a lemon glazed pound/bundt cake that I've made before and she loves (from scratch...yes, I can get around a kitchen decently). So off to the grocery store I go to get a few items and I realize I do not have a zester. No problem...I'll just go over to the kitchen utensil aisle and grab one (needed some lemon fresh zest for the recipe). Soooooo....let's see.....ahhhhhh....hmmmmm...peelers...strainers...knives....garlic press......bottle openers...pastry cutters...whisks...cork screws...ladles...graters....aaaaaaaaand no zesters. Not one. Zero. NADA. Know what else they DID HAVE? Melon ballers and...fucking lobster crackers. LOBSTER CRACKERS. Really? "What? You want to grate a little fresh citrus peel into a dish from a 0.35 cent lemon? What are you? An aristocrat??? A fucking Rockefeller????? A goddamn zester??????? Get the fuck out of my store you bourgeoise pig!!!!!! Now go home and eat your $45.00 a pound lobster like the rest of us proletariat peons! Don't you know there's a recession for the love of Christ? Zester he says....too proud to eat lobster apparently. Citrus....pheh. Everybody knows little balls scooped from a Honeydew is where the blue collar working Joe butters his bread. Lobster and melon balls....it's what made this country great!!!! You can take your citrus peeled snobbery back to your cave you Al Queda fuck!!!!" Funny thing is, I'm not even sure the grocery store that had the lobster cracker even had lobster FOR SALE.

OK...what I'm trying to illustrate here is the absurdity that a utensil made for eating lobster, a prohibitively expensive dish, is somehow more common, and easier to obtain, than a simple citrus zester. Furthermore, how many dishes ask for lobster as an ingredient as opposed to some zested citrus? I'm sure it has to be an amazingly high disparity....like similar to the proportion of Republicans at a Lilith Fair festival (too obscure?). And a melon baller? I've never, in my 43 years, EVER had the need for one. Ever. Actually, I'm not even sure what a ball of melon would be required FOR (and, as an aside, doesn't "melon baller" sound like a play-ah? I picture a casaba with a gold chain, sipping Cristal, and macking ((does anybody even use that term anymore?)) the cantaloupes). A melon ball also sounds like a medical condition. "Sorry sir, but the tests reveal you have a melon ball." "Yeah...when it turned green I figured something was up. Plus, when I thumped it, it sounded off...like it wasn't the highest of quality."

OK, so I'm watching Saturday Night Live and laughed at a sketch with puppets, and lost my train of thought. Um.....nope. It's gone. So, I'll end with this: had Teppanyaki tonight for daughters birthday dinner out, and somebody spilled some sort of sauce all over my shirt. That sucked. Food was really good though...

Same old sh*t, but a new (old) song, and Bradley Cooper sucks like an iPhone

Once again, I was in line at the grocery store, the "express line" to be precise. It was the middle of the afternoon, I was on a day off, and I figured I'd take advantage of buying a few groceries while everybody else was at work. There was a grand total of two registers open, and each line had three customers in them ahead of me. How long could this checkout process/purchase take, right? I should be out of there lickity-split...but NO. Of course not. You see, I have as much luck with a grocery store checkout line as Lindsay Lohan does at not continually falling into a mountain of cocaine. In other words, my experiences, like Lindsay, are usually a train wreck (only difference is, unlike Lindsay, I generally don't give folks a crotch shot whenever I get out of my car to enter a place of business*...but I digress). As soon as I choose the express line to conduct my purchase, the cashier immediately calls for "the manager" (never a good sign) because somebody is apparently trying to purchase their foodstuffs with beaver pelts (not Lindsay's) and flint arrowheads. Fearing Sacajawea's (look it up) purchase may take a minute or two longer than I'd like, I stare longingly at the other line that seems to be moving. I make a beeline (do bees fly straight? Not in my experience...seems to be a misnomer here. Unless, of course, "beeline" means to approach in a rather crooked manner, and I have misunderstood its meaning. If this is indeed the case, let it be said I, in fact, DID NOT make a beeline, but made a geometrically perfect, laser beam straight line for the quicker moving cashier aisle). Naturally, as soon as I get there, the cashier asks for the manager because apparently the person in front of me cannot figure out why the credit card machine will not accept their Costco/movie rental/school ID whatever the fuck card it is it's certainly not a credit/debit card card, and is making a fuss. If this person tried to use a third party check (look it up) covered in cocaine (for some reason I'm going to milk the word "cocaine" for all its comedy potential because "meth" is soooo passe) residue from Juan Escobar (look him up) it would raise less flags. Anyways, by this time the express line was empty and I wandered back over and made my purchase. Yeah, I know, this story has an anti-climatic ending, but truth isn't always stranger than fiction, and I got a wicked cold spot on my chest from balancing my gallon of milk against it as my hands held a few other loose items (again, not Lindsay). Hey, it was really cold, ok? You have no idea of the suffering...or maybe you do. Whatever (quit trying to one up me here...Jesus...get your own blog for crying out loud you attention hog! By the way, I wasn't talking about the spiritual figure...although I hear he was fond of an attentive crowd).

-Apparently there's a new iPhone out. Yawn. Bigger screen. Supposedly 4G speeds. So, um, and? A quicker download and streaming of porn with a larger image? Yeah...that's worth $600. All want to know is this: will it make a fucking phone call that doesn't include 50% of the conversation including the words "Can you mear me now??? Arrrrgh!!!!!" (Is arrrgh a word? Discuss amongst yourselves. Also, doesn't the word "amongst" sound like an ethnicity? "You know, I don't know much about those Amongst peoples, but damn, they make a helluva noodle dish.") Anyways, iPhone hoopla is the tech industry equivalent of the next Bradley Cooper movie. A lot of folks are going to pay for it, claim they enjoy it, but secretly be disappointed with the product.

-Remixed an old song of mine. Sometimes you write and record something but it doesn't quite feel finished...or it missed the mark...felt like it came in under expectations (what I like to call the "Bradley Cooper effect"). Anyways, remastered it, added some keyboards, and VOILA! It's now representative of what was in my head (don't ask...). Oh...you asked? The inspiration for this song was I wanted to write something that would sound appropriate for the closing end credits of a dark and somber superhero movie...something Batman-esque. You know, the hero walks alone as his destiny is unveiled, etc (I guess the movie would have to be part one of a trilogy...as while the destiny may be unveiled, the dark, isolated journey has only begun). OK, I realize I have just outed myself as a colossal nerd. "Hello, my name is John..and I like nerdy shit like English comedy, art films, think Breaking Bad is one of the greatest TV shows ever, and have a fondness for Stephen King and Christopher Moore novels. I am powerless in the face of my addiction."

Anyways, here it is. "Inside the Lizard Brain"



*Remember a few years back when every brain dead starlet would get her bare vajayjay photographed as she exited a car in a short skirt? It turned into some sort of weird bimbo arms (vag?) race where one trollop (look it up) would try to outdo the other for shock value? I was kinda hoping things would reach their inevitable end, no, not Mutual Assured Destruction (look it up), but with Britney Spears/Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan getting a full gynecological exam on the sidewalk outside of a West LA club as the paparazzi's flash-bulbs blinded the doctor administering the pap smear.