Monday, June 26, 2006

Potty Mouth

A lack of intestinal fortitude by Killer

I hang out with a select group of friends. One of the primary bonds within this group is the extreme level of immaturity that permeates us all. While travelling the world with several of these friends it is not uncommon to run across food or tainted water that does not agree with one's stomach. Over the years this has created a slew of descriptions for one particular act. Everyone does it, but not everyone has so much fun talking about it.

Slam
Drop a deuce
Grump
Drop the kids off at the pool
Gave birth to a four pound, brown baby
Let the Gringo
Teach the toilet a lesson
Show the toilet who's boss
It's time for the running of the bulls
Bring the funk
Ass-plosion
The Green apple quick step
Giving back to society
Code Brown

I always appreciate new terms for this occurence so please feel free to comment in order to add to this list. If you don't know what I am talking about, you are a better person than me.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Cats Are Not the Spawn of Satan

Liz purrs:

No one "be hatin' on the bitches". And I mean that literaly. Everyone likes dogs, or at least no one will admit that they do not like dogs for fear of appearing Godless and coldhearted. I like dogs. I like dogs that do not stink, do not shit on the floor, are not trying to hump your leg, and do not bark or growl except at predators. I am not a predator. I like dogs that want very little attention, play for their own amusement- not the amusement of their master- and that do not chase after tires, trying to attack them. In other words, I like dogs that are evolved enough to act like cats.

A few mornings ago I was leaving work around 6:30- night shift is a bugger- and I drove past what I thought was a roofing shingle in the middle of the parkway. Barely making an effort not to plow over the debris, I was very surprised that the shingles had 4 eyes and were, in fact, not home improvement items but instead two very small micro-kittens. I U-turned, chased the kittens (they did not put up much resistance) into a ditch and collected them. They were so amazingly tiny! I called Kim, got the recovery effort going, then went home and went to sleep.

The next night at work I told the story (spiced up to make a sale), told them about the cats already being taken to the vet and wormed and twice bathed, described their beauty in detail, and with 20 men in the room, no one had even the faintest interest in taking one of these cats. I can understand that. What I cannot understand is the HOSTITLITY toward cats. "Who would want a cat?" "WHY did you save them?" "You should have run over them." "I hate cats." It was AWFUL.

Why do people despise cats? What could a cat have ever done to you? You got scratched once? I'll bet your girlfriend has scratched you before! You got bit once? I'll bet you were pulling the cat's tail and deserved it! I don't comprehend this intense desire to elminate cats from the species pool. You never hear of a cat mauling the neighbor's child or killing a jogger. That's always dogs. Cats certainly aren't the more vicious of the two animals. I have had 4 cats in my life and never has one lifted it's leg and peed on me or my furniture. I cannot say the same for the dogs my family has had. So, what is the deal? How did cats get lumped in with snakes and spiders as the offical representatives of Satan on Earth?

I did end up finding a home for both kittens. A man in the class, under his breath, said, "My wife wants a cat." "SOLD!" I exclaimed. Before the end of the night he said he would take them both. I made him promise he was not going to use them as bait or torture them. He promised. These babies are less than 5 weeks old. Right now they are a little needy-they need some compassion and attention. But they will out grow that soon. Then they'll just "be". They will entertain, they will give you attention on a limited basis, they will chase after moths and shoelaces. Perfect! What more can someone want from a pet? Hell, that's exactly what I'm looking for in a boyfriend.



Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Reaching out across the pond

Thanks to Liz's trolling of this great blogger experience via the "next blog" button we have been exposed to a very clever blog by a gentleman residing in London. This is no easy task thanks to the millions of blogs written by high school kids residing in Japan and Singapore. Often the "next blog" button continously leads to a page filled with Hello Kitty graphics or, worse yet, it is some amateur political writer striking out to be the next Rush Limbaugh, prescription drug addiction and all.
Mick's Weird World is the blog and can be found at mickc.blogspot.com. I have also included a link on the right side of the page for those of you who are less than computer savy. It is pretty funny stuff, and as an added bonus it is written in proper English, complete with use of words like stand pipe and petrol station. It will be entertaining, as well as, educational.

Monday, June 19, 2006

From the Road: Bonnaroo

Egotistically expressed by Killer


Hello faithful blogees, I am back from Bonnaroo. You might be wondering, "What the hell is a Bonnaroo?" It is a three day music and arts festival held annually in Manchester, Tn. It usually averages about 90,000 attendees. A large portion of which are drugged out, ex-dead head, dread lock wearing hippies, but in today's modern world they go by a new term, "Wookie", or "Wook". Personally I am offended by this term, not because I am concerned with their feelings, but rather, I am a fan of Chewbacca and I don't want his image disrespected in such a manner. I have no pics of Wookies, because I did not think of it at the time. Not everyone is perfect, get off my back!


I attended the afore mentioned concert with two fellow music lovers, who were also probably too old and/or straight laced to attend. The top is Disco Stu and the bottom is Gatewood. (By calling one a "top" and one a "bottom" I hope you don't get the wrong idea) We share a pension for college/indie/alternative rock that brought us to this years line up. It included: Radiohead, Ben Folds, Beck, Elvis Costello, Death Cab for Cutie, Brighteyes, The Magic Numbers, Nicklecreek, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Blues Traveller, My Morning Jacket, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Matisyahu, and many, many more. If you have not heard of many, or any of these bands, you are not truly a musical elitist such as myself, and should probably continue to listen to whatever pop radio is telling you is cool. My choice in music does not make me better than you, but it's close.

We, along with the other 90,000 other festival goers camped out for the event. This is our set up. We had to trek over a mile from our vehicle to set up camp. We brought 5 coolers, 150 bottles of water, 140 cans of beer, 48 cans of soda, 12 bottles of gatorade, 15 bags of ice, 2 bags of chips, 1 bag of beef jerky, 2 tents, 6 folding chairs, the canopy, and about 20 pounds of moist wipes and hand sanitizer. This made for three grueling, sweaty trips to and from the vehicle. Most people probably did not bring this many supplies, but we are extremely prepared. The 20 pounds of moist wipes and hand sanitizer are directly linked to one festival goers intense germ phobia. After three days of camping and rocking out in 98 degree weather, a quick smell check would rule me out as the germ-a-phobe. On a side note, that large, bulbous shadow in the bottom right of the picture is me, so a hot six mile trek is needed.

One of the first notable acts we checked out was Ben Folds. He is the piano player above. Extremely talented and a great showman. We did not realize we could sneak our folding chairs in to the show this, the first, day so we stood around in the blazing sun for a long time waiting for the show to start. It definitely detracted from the enjoyment. We would not make this mistake again.

The second act of the first day we caught was Nicklecreek. If you have never heard of these guys, don't feel bad, most people have not. They are a bluegrass/indie rock band from Southern California. They were, in my not-so-humble, opinion the best show of the weekend. They kicked ass. I now think every band needs a mandolin player and a violin. They did an incredible cover of Britney Spear's "Toxic". We would finish the first day chilling at the tent drinking beer, and resting for the midnight show which was My Morning Jacket. I have no pictures from these guys because I did not remember to bring my camera to the show.
We would begin the second day with The Magic Numbers, an incredible new English band that seemed very amazed by the size of the crowd that showed up to see them play. This day was already off to a better start because we had chairs and could sit down and still see the band for most of the show. About midway through a jackass from Toronto (atleast he was wearing a Toronto Bluejay hat, and I don't think anyone outside Toronto would) decided to stand right in front of me and block my view. Yet another reason to dislike the Canadians. We would leave this show and catch a few songs by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. After that I spent a long time in the Micro Brewery tent they had on site. After a few hours of drinking good beer and making fun of the wookies lounging around in the shade we ventured out to see Beck and stake out a good spot to wait for the headliner.

The headliner performance was provided by Radiohead. I think just about all 90,000 people showed up for this show. If you notice, from our spot you can barely make out Thom Yorke, but atleast they had the jumbo screens to show him. We were so far back because we decided to stay seated for the majority of this show, so for a large portion of the show all I saw was the assess of the people in front of me and a very zealous wookie selling drugs to the mish mash of people in attendance. It was a touching moment as he made no discrimination in his entrepreneurial endeavors. He sold to frat boys, soccer moms, rednecks, and his fellow wookies alike. Everytime someone would walk by he would say, "nugs, I got nugs", or "doses, I got doses." Nugs, I believe, is pot, and doses is acid. At one point he approached us to ask if we had a "glass one" he could use. I assumed he was asking for a pipe of some sort and honestly felt bad to not be able to accommodate him. I thought we had planned pretty well, but I guess we did not think of all occasions. Next time I will be more prepared. We also shared in a new first for all three of us. We got to witness a fairly unassuming group of people in front of us get down on all fours, one by one, and snort cocaine off of someone's drivers license they had placed on the ground. Then they spent the next hour or so dancing around in front of us maniacally and waving glow sticks, which was also a point of contention among us that pointed out our lack of preparation, since we were the only people to not have brought glow sticks.
We left the next morning after convincing a drugged up couple to let us unstake their tent and move it aside, since they had set up camp behind our vehicle. There was actually many bands performing on Sunday, but after weighing our desire to see them perform against our urge to not spend another night of trying to sleep while drunk and/or drugged up frat boys or rednecks shot off fireworks, then being awakened at 5 am by a group of drunk and/or drugged up wookies, or maybe soccer moms having a "drum circle". It is getting harder and harder for an ever aging, musical elitist, beer geek to have a good time getting drunk, making fun of everyone else, and getting 8 solid hours of sleep. But, I guess if everyone was just like me I probably would not love me so much.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Your Socks Smell like Pork Loin

A gift from Liz:

Being the ideal daughter that I am, this afternoon I went to my folks' house for Father's Day. I grilled a batch of burgers, trying to perfect the recipe I will enter in this summer's Burger Grill Off contest. I'm getting close to Bovine perfection with these meaty morsels and hope to be blogging from Italy in September- where the top five contestants are flown.

While the grill was hot, I went ahead and threw a pork tenderloin on the grate so that I could get a couple of lunches out of it. When I left my parents' house I put the tenderloin and all the vegetables I could take from their garden into the same gift bag that I had brought Dad's shirts and jeans (Father's Day gifts) in. Now that bag reeks of meat. I mean it smells, although delicious, very much like a gift bag ought not to smell. I want to preserve the odor so that I can place my next gift to someone in this same bag. A gift that has nothing to do with meat. This has prompted me to try to think of as many things as I can that ought not to smell like a pork tenderloin. I have concluded that nothing should smell like pork tenderloin except pork, so any gift I place in the bag will do nicely. I am leaning, however, toward a set of sheets.

They say that smell is the sense most directly linked to memory. The smell of green Now and Laters make me think of my 7th grade year where I, industriously, sold candy out of my backpack at an outrageous mark up. My whole book bag smelled like pencil shavings and candy... and dimes, but I think I've imagined what dimes smell like.

I like smell, well some smells, and I love stumbling across a smell that takes me back to my grandmother's house or, just as good, to a trip in the woods. I like the smell of burning logs too, because that makes me think of Christmas- which makes me think of presents- which, from this day forward, will make me think of pork tenderloin.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

THEN and NOW

Liz compares:

I was recently told by a work friend that, although an attractive woman, I am no supermodel. Where did that statement come from? I would venture to guess directly out of his hairy ass, but that would be presumptuous. I felt violated by the statement; I wasn't asking for his assessment, he just laid it out there, unprovoked. I found it strange and meaningless but it's stuck with me for 8 nights now. I've broken it down to mean these things:
  • You're not hideous, but don't go without makeup
    If you'd lose 30 pounds, I might be interested
    You're pretty enough... for someone who's not really into looks
    You'll find a good mate, but don't be surprised when he dumps you for a hot chic
    Your genes should die with you when you go


He was telling me about his request to his wife for a divorce. As he spoke on this intensely personal subject, I heard one theme: I loved her as a girlfriend, hate her as a spouse. This got me thinking: is what makes a good girlfriend the same qualities you seek in a wife? Let's break THIS down:

  • GOOD GIRLFRIEND: Flirty and fun, all your guy friends love her
  • GOOD WIFE: Hardly speaks to your friends, stays home, doesn't flirt at all
  • GOOD GIRLFRIEND: Wears sexy clothes and shows off her body
  • GOOD WIFE: Owns granny panties; multiple turtlenecks
  • GOOD GIRLFRIEND: Can out drink half the guys you know
  • GOOD WIFE: Takes sips from your beer when she brings you a fresh one
  • GOOD GIRLFRIEND: Plans fun weekends for the two of you
  • GOOD WIFE: Doesn't want to go anywhere
  • GOOD GIRLFRIEND: Loves any present you give her- almost a guarantee you'll get laid
  • GOOD WIFE: Quit expecting presents years ago
  • GOOD GIRLFRIEND: Too busy being with you to keep the house clean
  • GOOD WIFE: Scrubs your pee off the toilet seat without complaining

I don't get it. One day I'll make a list of what makes a good boyfriend. I still have no idea what makes a good husband... but I know that telling you that you're no supermodel won't make the list.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Goal Oriented

Goaded by Killer

I believe it is important to set goals in one's life. Otherwise you might just aimlessly wander through time with no real direction or purpose. Some goals I have accomplished, some I have not. I plan to make them come to fruition, but things don't always go as we plan. Included in the successful ones are traveling to all fifty states, visiting Europe and SouthEast Asia, I made it through nursing school, and completed a brewers apprentice program. My car is paid for, and I have no credit card debt. See, set goals and make those goals. My future goals involve, visiting every country in the world, starting my own brewing company, and quitting nursing.
Sometimes we have non-goals, these are things that we hope with all our being that they will not happen and even go to great lengths to avoid them. I have a few of these that I have successfully avoided and some that I have not been able to stop. I really don't want to live a boring life with no hope of travel and excitement, so I have remained single and have no kids. I don't want to have any limbs lost to wild animals, so I don't work as a lion tamer or wrestle bears. I have an aversion to being gang raped in a prison bathroom, so I do my best to follow the laws set forth by our society. The non-goals that I did not manage to avoid are a combination of unavoidable circumstances and just plain poor foresight on my own part. I had a goal to never live in the South again, but for the last nine months I have lived in Memphis, TN. Unfortunately my family and friends all live in this region. As much as I would like to, I can't seem to shake them. I don't accept fault on this one, but others I accept it more willingly. I had a group of non goals from way back that included, but weren't limited to, not playing with other people's bodily waste, not placing items, including my fingers, inside another person's rectum, and not having a job that makes me want to hit people in the head with a ball-peen hammer. I will take partial blame for the failure of avoiding these non-goals. I did voluntarily sign up to be a nurse, but the nursing programs should have a disclaimer making it known that these horrific tasks are unavoidable if this program is completed.
So don't be afraid to shoot for the stars. I have a goal to be President of the World. I know this probably will not happen, but just in case it does, I want to be able to say, "I always knew I could do it." With my luck, being President of the World will have a duty that includes giving a suppository to the Vice President every day, or slightly worse yet, I might have to wrestle a bear.