Michael Vick, American Hypocrisy and Puppies

“You can judge a society by the way it treats its animals.” - Mahatma Ghandi

"I hated that movie. They killed a dog in it!" - The majority of people, after seeing any movie in which a dog gets killed.


Today, Michael Vick accepted a plea deal in his federal dogfighting case and is likely to see 12-16 months in prison. People all over the country feel vindicated by this. Why? Because they feel that Vick SHOULD go to jail for allegedly participating and funding a dog fighting ring as well as taking part in the killing of a few dogs. The killing of dogs is what strikes a chord with most people. They hear that Vick was "involved" with dog fighting and they say, "That's disgusting! Why would anybody do that?" But they hear that he "executed" dogs by hanging and drowning them and all of a sudden it's, "THROW HIM IN JAIL FOR LIFE! HOW COULD HE KILL A DOG?!" Let's take a step back and look at the big picture here.

First of all, I in no way condone harming animals, especially for sport or financial gain. I am a buddhist, after all, and do not believe in harming living things of any kind. And I was just as horrified as most people when I read the details in the indictment. But unlike most people, my first thought wasn't that Vick should be locked up. My first thought was that Vick needs some counseling and/or psychiatric help.

"How can you say that? The guy KILLED...A...DOG! He needs to be put away!" The only reason everybody is calling for Vick's head is because most people have some sort of emotional attachment to dogs. Many people own dogs themselves. Dogs are cute and smart and great companions and "man's best friend". Who on Earth would harm a dog?! Well it just so happens that a majority of these dog lovers wouldn't hesitate to throw a live lobster into a pot of boiling water to cook it. Nor would they think twice about setting up a mousetrap to break the neck of those mice in their basement. Nor would they bat an eye when throwing a few pounds of raw cattle flesh on the grill. People, in large part, are hypocrites when it comes to animal cruelty. They always want the cute ones to be saved but don't care about the ugly/mean/unsavory ones. We've all heard of "Save the Whales". Have you ever seen a "Save the Raccoons" bumper sticker? I rest my case.

Of course, the double-standard is nothing new to America. As George Carlin once said, this country was FOUNDED on the double-standard ("This country was founded by slave-owners who wanted to be free"). But that doesn't mean we need to perpetuate it. Sometimes we need to just stop and look in the mirror. This is a country where dog fighting is illegal, but any redneck with a 47 IQ can go out into the woods with a shotgun and kill a deer or a bear, cut its head off, and mount it on his wall. I can't be the only one who sees the ridiculousness in this.

This shit happens all the time. One of my favorite instances to point out is mentioned in Michael Moore's book Stupid White Men. In it, he talks about his movie Roger & Me and the one scene in the movie that censors urged him to cut. He refused to do so, and thousands of people who viewed the film wrote in expressing their displeasure with the scene. The segment of the film shows a woman who makes textiles from rabbit fur, killing and skinning a rabbit. (See it here) The outrage is understandable. Nobody wants to watch a rabbit killed and skinned. But Moore points out there's a scene in the same movie in which police shoot a mentally retarded man in the middle of the street. The scene did not garner a single letter from moviegoers. What does that say about us as a society?

It seems to me that there would have been less of an outrage if Vick had gotten drunk and run over somebody with his car. Hell, Leonard Little (another NFL player) did exactly that a few years ago and it was barely a blip on the national radar. But I bet if he had killed a few puppies, there would be a lot of people wanting him thrown in jail.

Again, I'm not saying that Vick did nothing wrong. He did. But the punishment should fit the crime. And those of you calling for the feds to lock Vick up and throw away the key, just step back and think things out for a bit.

August

This happens every year. August 1st rolls around and immediately I think, "Jesus christ. The summer is almost over! How did it go so fast?" When, in reality, there is a whole month left (7 weeks if you want to get technical). That seems like a lot of time. But when you break it down, it's really not.

If you have a typical job, you work Monday through Friday. That eliminates five days and nights of the week right there in which you could go to the beach, go to a bbq, get drunk at the bar, etc. Now, I understand that some people have no problem going out during the week, myself included. That's all fine and good, but try getting a decent amount of your friends who are working and contributing to society to go out on a Tuesday night and get drunk. Not easy.

Now, that leaves 2 days (Saturday, Sunday) and 2.5 nights (Friday, Saturday, sometimes a Thursday) to go all out and do what you want. So between now and Labor Day (the de facto end of summer) there are exactly 11 days and 15 nights to have real uninhibited fun without having to worry about work the next day (or at least not worry about it too much because Fridays are usually an easy day). That may seem like a decent amount....until you consider the fact that there are 34 days and 34 night between now and Labor Day. That's 26 out of 68, or 38% of the summer.

Anyway, my point is that this happens EVERY summer. You kick things off with a long Memorial Day weekend. You're at a bbq or a party with your friends. You're all drinking and having a good time and talking about how great the upcoming summer is going to be. Then time proceeds to fly by at superfast speed. You go to the beach a few times, go out every weekend, go to a few parties, see a lot of people, maybe go away for a week or two. Then we arrive at today, August 1st, and you wonder where all the time went.

What usually comes next is thinking of all the things you wanted to do this summer but didn't get around to yet. People you wanted to see, places you wanted to go, things you wanted to do. You try and plan things for the few upcoming weekends that are left. But by this point, most of them (at least the Saturdays) are booked up. So then you get upset and angry about the summer being too short and you kick your girlfriend's cat in the ribs a few times because you enjoy beating up defenseless animals that are much smaller than you. It's an annual ritual.

I wish I had some sort of solution to this problem, but I don't. You just gotta cope with it because you can't slow time down. Get out there and enjoy yourself. Because the older you get, the less summers you have to take advantage of. That, along with the fact that you generally become less and less impulsive as you age really makes for a dire situation. I remember the first summer after college graduation. It was insane. I went out with friends EVERY SINGLE Tuesday night for Beat the Clock night at Bar A and got absolutely hammered on 50 cent beers. I didn't even care about having to go to work the next morning. And that was my first real job out of college. I was, in the words of Champ Kind, "All about havin fun." It was glorious. The best summer of my life.

But now, I have big things to worry about called responsibilities. The main one being a mortgage. And that pretty much confines my partying to weekends. And there are only a few of them left this summer. I guess I'll just do my best to take advantage of them.

The Wave

I recently purchased a Jeep Wrangler. I did this for a few reasons:

1- It's a fun summer car
2- I've kind of always wanted one
3- My previous car was a piece of crap

I didn't buy a new one because I didn't feel like delving into a monthly car payment. So I picked up a used one to tool around in for a few months. I thought of a lot of different things when I first decided to buy one; how bad it is on gas, how much of a pain it is to take the tops on and off, how totally sweet it looks to drive with the top off, etc. But I did not think about being inducted into a club of sorts.

I'm talking about the Jeep Wave. To be honest, I had never seen "the wave" between Wrangler drivers until about two weeks before I bought my own. I always thought that vehicle-based acknolwedgements were reserved for fat bearded dudes riding Harleys.

But evidently I was wrong. My second day driving it, a kid who couldn't have been older than 19 approached me from the opposite direction driving a Wrangler remarkably similar to my own and lifted his fingers off the steering wheel. Instinctively, I made the same gesture. The guy blew by me and I realized that I had been unwillingly initiated into the world of jeep drivers. I wasn't quite sure how to feel because whenever I see guys on motorcycles do their wave, I think, "That's kinda stupid. He probably doesn't even know that guy." But when you're actually participating in something like that, it's pretty cool. It's a type of comeraderie that doesn't exist among people who drive other vehicles. I mean, you never see two guys driving Hyundai Elantras give each other a respectful wave as they pass by each other.

I didn't realize how big a deal this whole "wave" thing was. But there are entire websites dedicated to it (see: http://www.jeeptalk.org/jeep_wave.shtml) They even give guidelines for how much creedence to give other jeeps based on age, appearance, upgrades, etc. It's freakin nuts. Who would actually put that much thought into something like this? Personally, I don't care enough to read through all the "rules of the Jeep Wave", so I'll just wave at all jeeps I see.

I'm not too discriminatory.

Awesome quote by Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone recently approached Iranian officials about making a biopic about their president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but was rebuffed because even though he was viewed as "opposition" by many in the United States, he is still part of the "Great Satan". To which he replied:

"I've been called a lot of things, but never a Great Satan. I wish the Iranian people well and I only hope their experience with an inept, rigid idealogue president goes better than ours."

Good stuff, Mr. Stone. Good stuff.

Mid-Week Days Off

Is there anything worse than having a day off in the middle of the week? This has happened two years in a row with the 4th of July. Last year it was on a Tuesday and I had to work on Monday because I worked at a bank and it's a federal law that banks can't be closed for more than 3 consecutive days. So that was gay. And now this year, it fell on a Wednesday. So on Tuesday, it felt like the Friday before a 3 day weekend; I came in to work wearing shorts and flip-flops, hung around for a few hours, did about 15 minutes of real actual work, and left at 12:30. It was awesome.

I had a whole big day planned for the 4th. I was gonna go crabbing with some guys in the morning, which was just an excuse to drink beers on a boat at 8:30am, then bring the crabs back to cook them up and have a bbq by the pool all afternoon and then maybe go check out some fireworks. It was gonna be a good 4th.

But what actually happened? I woke up at 5:00am, drove 20 minutes to John's house to find out that there's heavy rain and wind in the forecast, thus cancelling our crabbing trip/booze cruise. So I drive back home, sleep for a few hours, wake up around 10:30 to a dreary and drizzly Independence Day, and proceed to do absolutely nothing all day. The most exciting thing I did was return the empty keg from our housewarming party the previous weekend to the liquor store to get my deposit back. WOO-HOO!

Well, no. I actually did go to the movies with the little lady to see 1408. (Good movie with some geniunely creepy and jumpy moments. Very well-done. Almost worthy of its own blog entry.) So at least I did something. But after the movies, it was back home again. And it was rainy and damp out so we didn't feel like going to check out fireworks. I'm not an uber-patriotic American who gets a hard-on for fireworks on the 4th, but I still kind of felt like I should have at least seen some fireworks, even off in the distance, just to make it seem like the 4th of July. The whole day felt like a dreary Sunday. Why? Because I had to go to work today and Friday. And it's totally pointless because nobody wants to be here. Also, my boss isn't here. So that only adds to the "I Would Rather Be Anywhere But Here" quotient.

Plus, I'm leaving for a seven day vacation starting this Saturday. So all in all, I'd say my level of motivation falls somewhere between "Wanting to get a root canal" and "Desire to get punched in the stomach really hard." This is going to be a pretty brutal day.

Chubbs....You took his hand....

http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1637374,00.html

Thursday

Evidently I'm a huge dork because I have a blog.


Whatevah, you know? Whatevah. You do what you like to do, I do what I like to do, ok?


RANDOM LINKS:
(note: this is a feature I may or may not post regularly)

Bricks Explode: The Top 10 Unintentionally Funny TV Intros

Dramatic Chipmunk - CollegeHumor video

The Gayest Moments in Music Article on Blender :: The Ultimate Guide to Music and More

Insane Karate Teacher - Danerd.com

YouTube - Scientists simulate jet colliding with World Trade Center

"Eh"

"Eh"

It's a response we've all heard before. You may expect to hear it when you ask someone if feel like getting Chinese food for dinner. You may expect ot hear it when you ask someone how they feel about Rocky III. You expect to hear it when you point out a s0-so looking girl at the bar and ask your buddy what he thinks of her.

Point is, "eh" is a common answer/cop-out for a lot of different questions. We've reached a point in our lazy society where we're not surprised when we get "eh" as a response to any question we may think to ask someone.

"How ya doin' there, Stanley?"

"Eh..."

"Oh. Still having problems with those anal warts?"

"Eh"

"Wanna go talk about it over a few beers and then beat up some midgets?"

"Eh"

It's almost as if people have become too lazy to say "I don't know," which is a whopping THREE TIMES as long, with the added stress of pronouncing actual words. But that's not my point. What I am trying to say is that there are very few times when you are shocked or taken aback or offended when someone replies to a question with "eh."


I had my first experience with "eh shock" last night. I was in bed with my girlfriend. She was tossing and turning a lot before mentioning that she wasn't tired and couldn't fall asleep. So I, naturally, being kind of "in the mood" anyway, broach the subject of partaking in consensual intercourse (not in those exact words). Her response: "Eh"

What a stomach punch to the ego that was. I almost couldn't believe it. No "I'm not in the mood" or "I don't feel well" or "I'm kinda tired." Just "eh..." And the way she said it, it was as if I had just asked her if she wanted to want to watch The Tonight Show. In its own strange way, it was incredibly insulting. I know she wasn't purposely trying to be mean about it. She merely chose her words poorly; which is something I'm sure we all have done.

Anyway, I managed to get over it and fall asleep. And I didn't even think about it this morning. Then I started thinking about it again and I was getting a bit ticked off to the point that I decided to dedicate a whole blog entry to it. You're welcome.

And yes, it's been a bit of a slow day at work.

A New Favorite Bar

"It's a really really small place. It doesn't get crowded. There's a pool table, a dart board, and that's about it. Oh, and people are allowed to bring their dogs. And the name of the place is The Druid's Keep."

That is what I was told about the bar I was going to last Friday night. As you can imagine, I wasn't exactly brimming with excitement about being brought along to a place like this. It was one of my girlfriend's friend's birthdays, and that is where he and his friends were going. I wasn't going to stay home, lest I look like a schmuck to my girlfriend's friends. (Inside fact: I have an inherent desire to be liked by people, especially those close to my significant other. It just makes life easier when they have a positive opinion of you.) So I decided to go, not at all expecting to enjoy myself in such a venue. The Druid's Keep??? Are you kidding me? Are we going to be drinking or playing Dungeons and Dragons?

So we roll up to the place and it doesn't look like much (click link above). Now I'm even less excited. But lo and behold, I walk in and the pleasantness hit me like an tidal wave of....pleasantness. The bar was bigger than I envisioned, and there was a good crowd, but by no means was it packed. There was one of those internet jukeboxes on the wall playing music at a moderate level so you didn't have to scream at the person next to you so they could hear you (I'll never understand why more bars don't do this). Then I see all the amenities: Photo Hunt machine, foosball, Golden Tee Live, pool, darts. This place had everything a cool bar needs. Plus they had some good beers on tap, including UFO Hefeweizen at only $4 a pint. I was also pleased by the $5 vodka Red Bull served in a pint glass.

As for the dogs, there was only one dog inside; the owner's husky. I love huskies. And this one was even cooler than most because it just kind of moseyed around the bar as if he were saying, "Hey. Having a good time? Yeah? Enjoying that beer ya got there? Ok, good stuff. See ya later."

Then you could go outside the bar to a fenced in backyard patio where there was some guy grilling free food (burgers, sausage, corn on the cob, chicken, etc.) It was almost like being at a frat house party, only way way way...way more awesome. There were two more dogs hanging out in the back, both pitbulls. And at one point the husky tried humping one of them. I don't care what anybody says; seeing a dog try to hump another dog (or any object, for that matter) is one of the funniest things that can ever happen. I was cracking up. After I saw that, The Druid's Keep officially won me over and catapulted itself into my Five Favorite Bars, among the likes of Bar A and Captain Hook's.

It is a safe bet that I will be returning in the near future.

Doubleshot Thursday

I live and work in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. This sucks for a lot of reasons (Eagles fans, Phillies fans, Flyers fans, etc.). But it also sucks because of 93.3 WMMR. This is the standard rock radio station in the area. Some of you who live in NJ may recognize this station. It sometimes comes in clearly on your radio dial if you're driving anywhere south of Interstate 195. Like most radio stations, they just recycle the same 30-40 songs EVERY...SINGLE...DAY. And if there's a new song that's "hot", they will proceed to play it once every 15 minutes. It's torture.

But Tuesdays and Thursday's are especially grueling. This is because Tuesday is "Twofer Tuesday" and Thursday is "Double Shot Thursday". What this means is that they pick an artist (usually one they play all the time anyway) and play two songs back to back. Now this wouldn't be so bad if they played GOOD artists. And every once in a blue moon, I'll luck out and hear two good songs from someone like The Who ("Baba O'Riley", "Eminence Front") or The Clash ("London Calling", "Lost in the Supermarket") or Bruce Springsteen ("Tenth Avenue Freeze Out", "Rosalita"). But like I said, those are few and far between.

What I usually get is back-to-back Bon Jovi or Breaking Benjamin or Nickelback. Freakin awesome! I can't describe how much I loathe Nickelback. Every time I hear them, I want to scream and flip my desk over in a fit of pure anger. It's almost unhealthy how furious I get when their putrid music enters my ear canal and moves up to my head where my brain says, "Wait...what's this????? This SUCKS."

But what may even be worse than hearing crappy songs by crappy artists is when they actually play good artists but play one or two shitty songs. This past Tuesday they played Pearl Jam and I felt a sense of relief anticipating some decent music. But then they play "Last Kiss" which is far and away the WORST song Pearl Jam ever produced. I don't understand why they still play that song on the radio. It was made to be intentionally bad as an indictment of the sad state of the music industry. Yet they still play it. I've never met a single person who says, "I kinda like that song." And if I ever do, I'll totally fight them.

Would it really kill WMMR (or any rock station who does this same sort of thing) to play two cool songs by cool musical artists? I mean come on. They know tons of people listen to this stuff at work. Does anybody really get amped up for the workday by hearing "The Man Who Sold the World" and "About a Girl" back to back? No. But can you imagine getting into work, starting on your first cup of coffee and hearing "And now music fans, here's a doubleshot of Iron Maiden," and then hearing "Two Minutes to Midnight" and "The Trooper". Oh man. I think my head would explode from awesomeness overload.

Anyway, I tried to combat the crappy radio by bringing my iPod into work and plugging it into my computer, but of course it doesn't have a firewire port. Freakin sweet.

DD, Hicks, Patron and Cornhole: The Story Of My Weekend

Happy Monday. Had a pretty good weekend. Friday night was the first of my girlfriend's two Going Away parties thrown by people at her office. Why is she having two? I guess they really like her. Anyway, being the good sport that I am, I offer to be her designated driver for the night. I figured that she wanted to go out and get wasted with her colleagues and who was I to stand in the way of that? I wasn't about to be like, "Hell no I won't DD! If I go out, I'm drinking!" No. That's not me. That's something her ugly loser ex-boyfriend (emphasis "ugly") (extra emphasis "loser") would do.

So I get out of work and meet them at a Mexican restaurant for dinner and a few drinks. Then they decide to go out to another bar afterwards, but my girlfriend wants to go home and change first. So we drive home where one of her friends/colleagues meets us and I drive both of them to this bar about 25 minutes away out in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't until I got to the bar that I remembered how much I hate being the designated driver. My last DD stint (several months ago when I was still living in southern California) ended with my car getting towed. Not only does it suck not being able to drink when you're at a bar, but it's absolutely excruciating not being able to get drunk when you're at a bar full of pickup truck-driving hillbillies and other various retards from the shallow end of the human gene pool. I really needed a few shots of jack, but was unable to do so.

And to make matters worse, my girlfriend started getting offended when I was making fun of said hillbillies. She took it as an affront to where she grew up and got quite upset with me. As far as I was concerned, I hadn't really done anything outlandish or out of line. At least I didn't think so. I didn't think it was too much of a reach to call the skinny 30 year old dude drinking Coors Light out of a can in the NASCAR t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, bad tattoos on both arms, shaved head, bad goatee, and messed up teeth a "hick". Nor did I think it was crazy to call the 45 year old guy with the dirty white t-shirt tucked into his Wrangler jeans, wearing white high-top Reeboks, who smashed his cell phone repeatedly into the bar until it was in four separate pieces before throwing it into the woods, a "stupid redneck." I was not making a blanket statement about everybody from that region. I was simply pointing out individuals and proceeding to make fun of them. That is all. And I usually do that whenever I go to a bar, no matter where it is.

Anyway, so that was Friday night. Saturday afternoon we went to a bbq which was fun. Crabs and shrimp were cooking on the grill, beers and margaritas were free-flowing, the sun was shining, the pool was open, etc. It was good times all around. Someone actually bought three bottles of Patron over. For those of you who don't know, that's about $160 worth of liquor right there. Patron is basically the Mercedes Benz of tequila. It's freakin good. But some idiot actually used almost half of it to make margaritas. I don't know how the woman who purchased the Patron held herself back from sticking that guy's hand in the blender. I would have been super pissed if some shlomo used Patron that I bought in margaritas. But all was not lost. I still managed to get myself two shots, and thus, I was satisfied.

Anyways, at this bbq, I was introduced to a game called Cornhole. Don't worry, it's WAY less gay than it sounds. It's pretty much a cross between horseshoes and that huge tic-tac-toe game you played with the beanbags when you were a kid. Based on the way the game looked when it was set up, I expected to play for about 8 seconds before I got bored. But a strange thing happened after I started playing; I got hooked. I think there's something in the male brain that requires them to become addicted to any sort of game where you have to throw some sort of object and some sort of target, because I could have played that game all night. If I had the motivation...and a yard...I would totally build a set of my own.

Thunderstorms all weekend

Today is Wednesday. The weather has been nice, but the forecast calls for thunderstorms on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Of course Thursday (tomorrow) is supposed to be 90 degrees and beautiful. Great beach day.

Rewind to this morning. My girlfriend sends me an email saying how today is a great day to be at the beach and we should have called out of work. I echo her sentiments. But then she says, "Let's do it tomorrow!" Of course, I'm all for it. So I'm excited all day at the prospect of blowing off work on Thursday and going to the beach for the first time this year.

Well tonight after we both got home, she eventually came to the decision that she should go to work tomorrow and NOT go to the beach. I was like WTF? How can she possibly arrive at that decision? I had my mind set on the beach. She had given me blue balls, but in a totally different way.

But this got me to thinking. Why do dudes and chicks feel so differently about playing hooky? At my first job out of college, I worked at a financial firm in a beach town, which was just WAY too tempting for me. I would regularly come into work at 9:30, stay for an hour or so, and then go to the beach. My guy friends thought it was pretty awesome. But blowing off work was like a total foreign concept to my girlfriend at the time.

"You did WHAT? Justin! You didn't go to work so you could go to the BEACH??? Why did you do that???"

The answer seemed pretty clear to me; I would have rather been at the beach on a beautiful day than sitting in my office making phone calls. Maybe it's because I'm a buddhist and I believe the goal in life is to achieve total happiness. I don't know. But anyway, it seems to me that girls and guys largely feel totally different on this issue. I've never heard anybody else bring this topic up in discussion, but I think it's a worthy subject. Are women just more responsible than men? (Doubtful) Do guys just care about their own enjoyment more than women? (Perhaps)

I dont' know. Whatever.

Running Tunes

I don't know how many of you out there like to run, but I do. I should probably do it more often, especially at this time of year when it's nice out. In a few weeks, the oppressively hot/humid summer will be here and I absolutely refuse to run in the summer unless it's: A) Very early in the morning B) Late in the evening C) Raining D) I'm participating in a sport or activity that requires it.

Anyway, I went running yesterday with my girlfriend after work. It was my first time jogging in about four weeks. Plus it was quite warm outside and my legs were sore for some reason AND I had barely eaten anything all day at work. Anyway, my point is that under the aforementioned circumstances, I should have tired out quickly and been back in the apartment huffing and puffing before I hit the half-mile mark. But we ran for a solid 20-25 minutes, and I felt like I could have gone even further.

After pondering the reason for this, I came to the conclusion that it must have had something to do with listening to my iPod as I run. A good running soundtrack really takes your mind off of how much running sucks. I found myself cruising along while concentrating on the song lyrics rather than concentrating on how bad my legs/knees/lungs felt. I don't know why it took me so long to realize this, but it did. And so, I figured I'd post my "Running Playlist" because I know you're all really interested.

1. Your Hand in Mine - Explosion in the Sky
2. Training Montage (From Rocky IV) - Vince DiCola
3. China Groove - The Doobie Brothers
4. Against the Wind - Bob Seger
5. Graciosa - Moby
6. I Get Wet - Andrew W.K.
7. Winner Takes It All - Sammy Hagar
8. Breakdown - Tantric
9. Crash - Methods of Mayhem
10. Through The Never - Metallica
11. Train in Vain - The Clash
12. Elevation - U2
13. Stinkfist - Tool
14. The Trooper - Iron Maiden
15. Sorrow - Bad Religion
16. Use Me - Bill Withers

I could put some more in there, but nobody runs for longer than the running time of all these songs. And if you say that you do, you're lying.

Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s

Those who know me pretty well know that I am quite a big fan of the Guitar Hero games for PS2. I had heard of the game when it first came out, but never desired to play it. I figured that since I don't play real guitar, I would not enjoy the game. I'm the type of guy who needs to relate to something in order to appreciate it. For instance, lots of people love the movie Half Baked, but I, not being a pothead, think it's awful and unwatchable.

But I played the game around the time that Guitar Hero II was released. I was spending the night at my friend Dan's college dorm at NC State, which was my last stop on my drive from California back to New Jersey. After going to a bar to grab food and a few beers, we came back and Dan turned the game on. I was mildly excited, but far from gleeful. It was probably the same level of excitement you get when a friend of yours asks you if you want to see a picture of his new girlfriend; you're mildly curious to see what she looks like, but not exactly brimming with anticipation.

Dan plays a song first and then hands me the "guitar" and I scroll through the song list. Third song from the top is "Mother" by Danzig. THAT got me amped up because the song freakin rules. So I made that my first selection and was immediately hooked. I bought the game for myself and played it non stop. I got pretty damn good too, eventually accomplishing a 100% score for "Mother" on hard (which, sadly, is one of the highlights of my life).

But after I moved to south Jersey and without my PS2 at my disposal [side note: it's still in my old apartment in California, waiting to be shipped back] I have gotten rusty at the game. I realized I was losing my touch two weeks ago when I went home and played my 11 YEAR OLD BROTHER head to head and he absolutely SMOKED me in three different songs, including...yes...Mother. I realized that I had truly fallen out of favor with the game.

But then they released word a few weeks ago that there would be a supplemental game Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s. They didn't immediately release a song list, which sucked because that's all ANYBODY wanted to know about a game like this. How dare they announce the game without a playlist. That's like when someone says to you, "I had something really important/funny/awesome to tell you...but I forgot," and you want to punch them in the face for even bringing it up. Why even mention the fact if there's nothing behind it?

But recently they released a partial songlist and oh man is this game going to rule. Check this out: (CAPS represent songs or artists that I'm especially pumped about)

“I WANNA ROCK” (by Twisted Sister)

“I RAN” (by Flock of Seagulls)

“Round and Round” (as made famous by Ratt)

“I Want Candy” (as made famous by Bow Wow Wow)

“Metal Health” (as made famous by Quiet Riot)

“HOLY DIVER” (as made famous by Dio)

“HEAT OF THE MOMENT” (as made famous by Asia)

"18 AND LIFE" (as made famous by SKID ROW)

"SHAKIN" (AS MADE FAMOUS BY EDDIE MONEY)

Eddie Money!!! Oh man! Early June. I'm buying it. I'm rocking out to Eddie Money, Skid Row, et al!

Then I'm gonna go kick my little 11 year old brother's ass head to head on 18 and Life.

It's nice out...just like SoCal

It's currently 80 degrees out, which is nice. It would be even nicer if I didn't have to work until 7:30 tonight. This is one thing I hate about being back in New Jersey. There are only a few weeks of really nice weather like this (late Spring) and I have to spend a majority of them working. When I was in California last year, I spent a lot of 75-80 degree sunny days working. But that's because EVERY day was 75-80 degrees and sunny, so there was no feeling like a beautiful day was wasted working.

Well that's not true, because nice days WERE wasted working. But it wasn't like there was only a limited amount of nice days throughout the year and you felt like you needed to take advantage of every single one. That's because every weekend and every time I had a day off, it was just as nice. And that's why Southern California is awesome. Well that and the fact that nearly every woman living there looks like she just walked out of the pages of Maxim. That was nice too. See the girl at the left? Every girl in the OC looks like that. I swear. Pose and everything.

Anyway, there's only 2 more days until Memorial Day Weekend. The unofficial start of summer. I definitely missed this last year, being in Cali. It's nice there all year round, so when summer rolls around it's no big deal. But like my friend Joe said, Summer is an event in Jersey. I couldn't believe that I never thought of it like that, but it's totally true. Summer in NJ, particularly if you live near the beach, is hella awesome. Three great months of good times flanked by two holiday weekends. Memorial Day kicks things off and Labor Day waves a sad goodbye. And this weekend I will be kicking things off by drinking all day at Joe's party. Good times will be had. Last time I went to a party at this venue, I ended up sitting naked at the kitchen table in front of my soon-to-be girlfriend and various others. And that was just a small party in the middle of November. I'm sure I'll have some good stories to post here on Tuesday.

Enjoy your Memorial Day.

Human Giant

MTV is currently running 24 hours of some sketch show called Human Giant. I had never seen the show before last night. I only ended up watching it because I was flipping through the channels because nothing else was on. But oh man, this show is freakin hysterical. I saw at least 10 sketches that were funnier than anything Saturday Night Live has done in the last five years.

There was one skit called "Old Fashioned Fun" (pictured above) where the three guys decide to have some old fashioned fun so they go to a kids' playground in the park and start playing on the equipment in slow motion while this song "Old Fashioned Fun" plays in the background. Eventually the police come and tell them to get off the playground and they reply with "What's the problem officer? We're just having some good old fashioned fun". They then proceed to gleefully run from the cops, again in slow motion with the song playing in the background. Then one guy gets hit by a car and lays dying on the street telling his friends, "Boy. We sure had some old fashioned fun, huh?" I realize that it doesn't sound as funny typed out as it does watching it. But you'll just have to trust me on this one.

Apparently they're running the show for 24 hours and trying to get people to watch it to keep it on the air. Supposedly if they get 1,000,000 hits on their website during the 24 hours, the show would stay on the air. I went and checked it out. I hope 999,999 other people did too, because this show is freakin hilarious and it needs to stay on the air.

I'm at work

I'm currently at work. Fridays are usually nice and easy. I'm in the mortgage business and do all my work over the phone. It's pretty nice not having to ever meet a client face-to-face. That's the good part. The bad part is that I make 100% commission. I've been ok so far, though. Made some decent money. But it can get frustrating. I'm the type of person whose mood reflects his environment. When I put a deal in, I'm like, "OH MAN THIS JOB RULES! HEYOOOO!!!" But when someone turns me down and a deal falls through, I need to muster up all my will power to keep from punching a hole in the wall. Then I start to just lose interest. I've often asked myself if I have ADD. Seems that I could. And it's so over-diagnosed that there's a good chance that I could be classified as such. Whatever.

Some outside sales lady was supposed to bring lunch in today. She just got here. No lunch. She brought some cream puffs and other pastries. I wouldn't have a problem with this if I was a fatass. But I was expecting a free lunch today. You know, various sandwiches, maybe some salad. Nothing fancy, just a decent lunch that was free. But no. This clown brings in sugar/cholesterol/fat nuggets wrapped in wax paper. Mmmmmmmmmm. Not.

I realize that the previous rant makes me sound like a health nut who works out all the time and spends endless hours staring at his naked body longingly in the mirror. Not the case. I do happen to be in good shape, but it's not due to a rigid diet and workout regimen. Rather, it's genetics. I could eat 12 of those cream puffs and not gain a pound. I just don't feel like it.

That's all for now. I need to go to the bathroom.

YA BLOGGIN?????

This is my first time blogging. Ever. Yeah. Not much to muse about right now. I decided to take this initiative while I was sitting in my apartment alone and extremely bored. My girlfriend is out of town for a long weekend. She's down in Baltimore with some friends for The Preakness. She doesn't have a real interest in horse racing. Or in sports in general. But she does enjoy drinking with her friends (don't we all?).

As for me, I'm sitting here at 11:29pm writing this initial blog while watching and A&E show on the infamous mafia hitman/cleaner dubbed "The Iceman". I don't know his real name because I'm not taking a real interest in a show about a guy who spends five minutes talking about how he cut some "snitch's" tongue out and stuck it up his "rear end". Mmmmmmm....tasty. Oh man. Now he's yammering about how he didn't want to have two lives. He just wanted to have one life; a normal life with his wife and kids. Well...uhhh...Iceman, maybe you should have gotten into a different line of work. Like, say...accounting or car sales. Designated murderer/vengeance-wreaker for the mob isn't exactly the type of work you talk about at dinnertime. "How was your day, honey?" "It was a rough day. Had to punch this guy in the face for an hour and a half until he passed out. Then we hoooked his nuts up to a car battery until they were completely fried. Then we doused him in gasoline, set him in fire, and then pissed on him to put out the flames. Anyway, enough about my day. Angela, how did you do on your spelling test?"

Oh man. Now he's talking about how he tried to kill this one guy. True comedy follows:

"I put the gun under his chin [10 second pause]...and I shot him. [10 second pause] He didn't die. The gun jammed. [yet another 10 second pause] I had hit him in the side of the neck. He was...gurgling. Blood was pouring out of his mouth. And he looked like...he was in a great deal of pain."

Gee? Do you think so? Wow! Where did you go to medical school Dr. Iceman? It takes a real medical acumen to know that someone would be in a great deal of pain after they get shot in the neck.

Well it seems as though I got sidetracked and spent this whole first blog talking about this damn tv show. I'd write some more stuff, but I'm tired. Goodnight.