Tuesday, April 21, 2009

You're Gonna Get Yourself Knocked Down And You Better Learn To Stand Back Up For Those That Dwell On Disaster Let Sorrow Be Their Master

I was just remembering a day from my senior year in high school. There was a girl who seemed out to get me in a romantic way. I don't know if she was nice or not. She always just asked me to give her a ride home. I don't know much about her personality. She always just wanted me to drive her home.

I did once. Usually I said no. One day I told her I would sit with her until her bus came. We just sat there in the sun, not saying much. We decided we should do something so I asked, "Do you want to fall over backwards and I'll catch you (a.k.a The Trust Game)?"

She said, "Okay."

And I hopped up and I was about to jump over the railing to get behind her but by the time my feet were under me, she was already flopping off the rail backwards. I stood there in front of her and watched her as she hit the ground, flat on her back.

She immediately started yelling at me, "YOU'RE A JERK!!!"

I said, "You weren't supposed to fall yet. You were supposed to wait until I got behind you."

Her first mistake was trusting me. Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself but I suppose the lesson of this story is that: If you're going to trust me, you need to give me half a second to get behind you.

I was just remembering that today and it made me laugh.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Gayboobs

My wife and I were watching a DVD I checked out from the library the other night.

Her: "This is the longest and WORST movie I've ever seen."

Me: "It has a lot of good actors in it: Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy. Philip Seymour Hoffman... I figured it must be alright but it's gayboobs."

Her: "This movie really is gayboobs. It would have made so much more sense if the name of the movie was Gayboobs. There was a gay guy in it, there were boobs in it. But what does a Magnolia have to do with the movie. Nothing!"


We Will Win!

I know I'm probably one of the rare full-grown people in this world to be a fan of Robotech AND to have kissed a girl, but there may be others out there like me and I'm posting this for them.

The cartoon Robotech was actually three seperate japanese cartoons dubbed into english and jerry-rigged together to tell a single story. The first season was based on the japanese cartoon called "Macross."

Americans have tried to make their own sequals based on the old Macross story but they pretty much suck. Last year, for the 25th anniversary of Macross, they released a new show in Japan called Macross Frontier and it looks pretty cool with a lot of similarities to the original. You can watch an episode here. It's in japanese with english subtitles, though.


Watch macross frontier 2 in Animation  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Saturday, April 18, 2009

But I Don't Know That Guy And I'm Not Going Over There

I got home from work today and my son and a couple of his friends were playing video games. His friends looked up at me when I walked in the door and one of them said, "Uh oh. Your dad's home."

I said, "Yep. You'd better be scared. I spank every kid in the house every time I get home from work. That's my policy."

The friend said, "But I'm a GUEST!"

I said, "That means you get it first."

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Yes. No. Maybe. I Don't Know. Could You Repeat The Question?

The weather has been pretty horrible lately. But here is one brightside.

My boss is a tough old grizzly bear of a man. His way of encouraging you to work harder or faster is to say things like, "Do you need me to do that for you? I would have had that done by now," and so on. It doesn't bother me because I understood his personality from the first day I worked with him. The bottom line is that you aren't really ever allowed to complain about anything to him.

So when the wind was blowing all directions and the rain came pouring down yesterday we were standing in a four foot deep trench I had dug, heating up some PVC pipe with a little blowtorch.

It was seriously like being in the shower with your clothes on. We were soaked and dripping from head to toe. I sat there smiling like I didn't even realize it had started to rain and finally he snapped and said, "I think this work will be waiting for us when we come back next time. I'm going home."

So even though the weather was bad, I got sent home early with pay. I would stand in the rain for that any day. He also told me he had got us some inside work for the next day.

Today, we were moving some equipment in at a hospital. The equipment was bigger than the door to the building. The thing was heavy but we got it in by laying it down on its side. But it involved standing in the rain and snow for over an hour. I said, "I thought you got us some INSIDE work today."

But later we did go do some work at some other businesses that was inside so he wasn't lying.

After digging trenches for a week and working in the rafters of a warehouse that had never been cleaned once in the 50 years that people have been welding there, I gave up on trying to keep my sweatshirt clean.

I heard that the word "Khaki" is an old persian word meaning "dust." And today I realized that khaki is the color that ALL clothes turn when you never wash them. I have a hypothesis that if you look at homeless people from a hundred yards away they will all have a khaki tinge to them.

Today, my boss and I pulled into a parking lot on 4th South in downtown Salt Lake and we saw some shabby guys running to a coffee shop. They wore ragged work coveralls and winter coats and hats and they were very dirty. They each carried a small guitar case and a bunch of other stuff. It looked like they were carrying everything they owned.

My boss pointed at them and asked, "Homeless?"

I said, "No. They're just musicians."

Take her arms and hold her down and hold her down and hold her down

Me: "At the last job I was working on there was this cool Dodge Charger always parked in the parking lot; bright red with racing stripes and a hood scoop and fancy brakes. At first I thought it must belong to some snooty guy but later I found it that it belongs to this girl. This really big girl. This really big girl in a sporty red leather jacket.

And then at the bank where I'm working now there is this nice Ford Mustang that parks next to me everyday. And I finally saw the girl that drives it and she's kind of this squatty little blonde girl...

And I just sort of think...

...it seems like...

...it's kind of weird..."

Then my wife realizes that her husband is about to demonstrate what an insensitive and shallow jerk he really is. She yells, "Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!" as if she can stop me from finishing.

Me: "It's weird that these mediocre girls are driving cars that are way sexier than they are."

And my wife's face is crushed like she can feel the pain those girls would be feeling if I had said that directly to them. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I would rather prefer a pretty girl in a crappy car. Like a flower on a withered branch. That's all. It's just an opinion.

And it probably applies the same to guys. Except I don't sit around thinking about how sexy guys may or may not be.

It's just something that's been on my mind.

It had to come out.

Don't worry. I like girls with sweet spirits, too.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Stop What Your Doin, Cuz I'm About To Ruin The Image And The Style That Your Used To

The financial world is in pretty poor standing at the moment. Banks are closing, home foreclosure and unemployment are high, but the devastating affects of this economic downturn are even farther reaching than you may have guessed. Even people who are still lucky enough to have a steady job are facing new challenges.

For instance, the mofos at the furniture store find themselves with a lot of down-time because furniture is not selling like it used to. When work slows down, horsing around increases. But you can only hog-tie your coworkers or unexpectedly jump out of boxes yelling RAH! so many times before you need to come up with a new form of entertainment.

This is how it came to pass that the mofos decided it would be a good idea to get the two goofiest goobers on our crew and convince them that they should have a dance contest, to see who was the ultimate furniture store Lord Of The Dance.

Before you watch the video of these guys, please know that as it transpired, whispers did circulate through the crowd, "Are we going to hell for this? Yes. We are totally going to hell." It is disturbing, yet you can't look away.

At first, I felt so bad for the dancers. I have talked about Bregg (yes, his name is BREGG) several times on my blog before, and his exploits are endless. ENDLESS. But I stopped telling them because they could carry their own blog and I didn't want to completely demean him. Please trust me when I tell you that the footage of him dancing is practically a compliment in comparison to the embarrassing stories that I have avoided telling.

I've never talked much about Richard. I am pretty sure that he suffers from turret's syndrome (no foolin). The more excited he is about something, the harder it is for him to concentrate and he ends up grunting a lot. He also considers himself a serious martial arts student.

It is also important to remember that the mofos do not hold anything back. These two guys have spent years being verbally abused, yelled at, called names, and talked down to. During the dancing, the people who usually tell them where to stick things are suddenly cheering them on. I think the guys enjoy being the center of attention. They definitely give it their all. And for a brief moment or two, I think they actually believe, in their minds, that they are spectacular dancers.

The next couple of days after this video was shot, they seemed to strut around with pride at work. Richard came to me today and asked, "Did you see our video on Youtube? They cut out my best parts. They didn't even show my grand finale." Richard wished the mofos had posted the full 30 minutes of dancing. It's for the better. You have been spared the part where Bregg throws off his shirt.

Anyway, here are the highlights (If you don't like cussing then turn down the sound, they aren't called the mofos for nothin):



Anyway, if business doesn't pick up from here, just imagine what else may happen.

Speaking of dancing: After my brother's wedding, they had some dancing in a beachhouse. I didn't dance, but my wife was talking about it to my sister.

My wife said, "Have you seen Emmett dance? It is so...."

My sister said, "Yes. He used to dance like Axel Rose."

My wife said, "Yeah. It's so interesting. And people form circles around him when he dances."

I said, "Yeah, but it sucks. They make a circle around you and you just sit there dancing and you're like this is all I've got, people!"

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Killing Is My Business And Business Is Good

The 20-year-old (whom I call the 18-year-old) that I hang out with from the furniture store recently got a small promotion.

The other night I asked him, "So how do you like your new position?"

He said, "It's so boring. I don't do anything. Last night I watched Clerks I, Clerks II and The Matrix: Revolutions on my iPod. Then I read two issues of the City Weekly paper and then I TRIED to do some work on the computer but the other boss had already finished it. And then I went home and I was bored to death because I got kicked off of World of Warcraft!"

I said, "I heard. What exactly did you do to get kicked out of World of Warcraft?"

He said, "I bought a bunch of virtual gold from some chinese dude and then I went in the game and bought ALL of the adamantite and sarmite ore in the entire World of Warcraft. When I had all of the ore I put it all back up for sale at super-high retarded prices and stupid people kept buying it from me anyway. But the next time I tried to log into my account I got a message that I was banned for ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION."

I said, "It's funny that you run around murdering and stealing and riding zebras and stuff in this fantasy world and that's all wonderful but then the moment you try to use common business tactics like Walmart and Microsoft they completely ban you from playing anymore. Like sorry, you only get to do crazy stuff like that in THE REAL WORLD, this here world is just for killing stuff."

What does that say about the real world? We are surprised the global economy is broken?

Sunday, April 05, 2009

You Can Do So Much

Just thought I would share a little music I can't stop listening to:

Keane is still a thousand times better than Coldplay



If you wish the band Rush was still pumping out good albums then maybe you would like Coheed and Cambria

I Never Knew What Everybody Meant By Endless Hopeless Bleak Despair

At the request of my readers, here is a blurry picture of my precious kidney stone. In addition to not owning a chainsaw, I also don't own a microscope. The kidney stone is not spikey, but upon closer inspection it looks to be comprised of little lumps all mashed together into a ball; like if you took a bunch of little wads of playdough and squished them into one ball without smoothing out the seams. Oddly, staring closely at the kidney stone makes me hungry for a rootbeer float.



And I never actually intended to tell a story about the kernel of popcorn that was stuck in my teeth but here is a picture I drew really quick which sums up the problem.



I walked around with a piece of popcorn stuck behind my tooth for a couple days. I finally got it out, but a couple days after that, I ate popcorn again and another piece of popcorn got stuck in the exact same spot.

When I was younger, we went and saw "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and I got a piece of popcorn stuck in the back of my throat for a week. It was horrible.

Those are my popcorn stories. I wouldn't have told them except our dear sweet friend Holly requested them and she was in my dream last night. I dreamed we were trying to play Boggle but I couldn't find all the letter cubes we needed to play.

Dreams are dumb.