No shirt, no shoes, no problem

A few days ago my sister called to see if I wanted some hand-me-downs for Mr M.  I told her I did, so she said she would send a box of clothes with her husband to drop off if I could go pick them up at his business location that's closest to me.  So I went and picked them up, then took them over to my kids' house so Mr M could go through them.  There were a lot of shirts that he really liked, including a couple of sleeveless t-shirts.

Mr M has always been one who likes to show off his 'muscles' so I said, "You should be happy about having all these muscle shirts, right?"

He answered, "Well, I don't want to have too many muscle shirts because it can be ghetto, depending on the situation."

"No, Dude, it's always ghetto.  No matter what the situation is."


So yeah, another quality piece of fatherly advice goes into the books.

Now that we're old and prouder than we should be, I hear you talking but I don't see the need

Girl: She's beautiful.

Me: Yeah, she is beautiful, but you know is more beautiful?

Girl: Who?

Me: You.

Girl: You think I'm beautiful.

Me: You know what they say about beauty?

Girl: It fades?

Me: It's in the eye of the beholder.

Girl: True.

Me: And you know who the beholder is, right? Me. So you don't really get a say in this.

You're gonna find you'll find yourself alone

So, it turned out that the girl I could've been "guaranteed to make out with" was, in fact, PTSD girl.

How do I know you ask? Because one of her friends asked me if I was going to hook up with her.

Me: No.

Girl: Why not?

Me: Just because.

Girl: You should. I hear she's a really good kisser.

Me: I'm going to have to go ahead and take your word on that.

Girl: I think you two should hook up.

Me: It's not going to happen.

What I wanted to say: "Have you seen me? I can do way better than that!

I recounted that conversation to a couple of girls who were there the night we met those girls, and told them what I wish I had the sack to say.

They claimed that she wasn't all that ugly.

I maintained that she was.

We argued about it for a while, and they eventually asked me what I'd rate her on a scale of one to ten.

I said about a three.

They said she was at least a five or a six.

I vehemently disagreed, and then started showing them pictures of other girls I know so they could rate them. It seemed to me that they would rank many of the girls who I think are cute a point or two lower than I would, and they'd rate the girls I thought were ugly a point or two higher than I would.

Then we shifted things into a higher gear.

Girl: Alright, give me an example of an actress you'd rate as a ten.

Me: Charlize Theron.

Girl: Ok. I'll give you that one. Who else?

Me: Alyssa Milano.

Girl: Really? I don't know if I'd rate her that high.

Me: Well, I've been in love with her since 'Who's The Boss?' so maybe my ranking is a little higher than most people's would be.

Girl: Yeah, probably. Who else?

Me: I'm going to say Jessica Alba.

Girl: Jessica Alba is not a ten.

Me: I'm not saying she can act, because she can't, but she is hot. You have to admit that.

Girl: I don't think so. I'd put her at about an eight.

Me: You just showed a flaw in your rating system. If Jessica Alba is only an eight, there's no way that PTSD girl is a fucking six.

Girl: Ok. You've got a point.

So, to drag this story out even further, I was telling all of this to one of my sisters on the phone. She was laughing pretty hard. So then, thanks to facebook, I was able to steal a picture of PTSD girl and show it to my sister.

She agreed with me.

In fact, she went so far as to say that PTSD girl looked kind of like Shrek, and that maybe I should start calling her Fiona instead of PTSD girl.

So, on a scale of one to ten. What would you rank Fiona?

She's freezing cold and I don't have a blanket that's gonna' fit

Weather wise, this last week has been a little strange. We went from temperatures around 107 or 108 to cool and rainy in the span of a day. A friend and I were having dinner when a girl walked in wearing a trenchcoat, a scarf and a winter hat. The temperature was probably in the high 60s.

Friend: That's overkill, don't you think?
Me: Yeah, it's definitely not that cold out.
Friend: I saw a guy wearing a scarf earlier today too.
Me: That's never acceptable. The only time it's ok for a guy to wear a scarf is if it's January in Minnesota. That's it. When you live in Las Vegas, it's never cold enough to require a guy to wear a scarf.

My friend (who sometimes wears a scarf during the winter) didn't say anything.

Me: That's right, I'm talking to you.
Friend: To me?
Me: Yeah, Mr. I Sometimes Wear A Scarf Even Though I Live In Las Vegas Where It's Never Cold Enough To Warrant That.
Friend: Well, sometimes a scarf is fashionable. Like if you're wearing it with a nice jacket or something.
Me: You know what else is fashionable? Gay men.

So, allow me to modify my stance: It's ok to wear a scarf in Vegas if you're a gay man.

I wanna be where nothing needs to matter

What good is having a blog if one can't periodically use his/her readership to settle disputes? I say no good at all. So, I'm turning to you, dear readers. Today you get to tell me who is right, and who is wrong.

Person 1 thinks that there's a double standard when it comes to going into restrooms of the opposite sex. Women can pull it off. Men can't. Any woman who goes into a men's room might make any men in there uneasy, but it makes for a good story for them to tell. Conversely, any man who goes into a women's room is automatically considered a creep, and runs the risk of being arrested.

Person 2 doesn't think a man would be arrested if he went into a women's restroom.

Who is right?

I look around the world and see that only stupid people are breeding

I am an arrogant bastard*. I tend to think of myself as smarter than most people. While there are those who would argue that this is hardly true, it's true in my mind, and that's all that matters to me. As is the case with most arrogant bastards, I have a bunch of indicators that allow me to know how much smarter I am than everyone else. Some of these are obvious, some less so. The list of indicators is long, and I won't go into all of them here, but I thought I'd share some of the most obvious ones.

I am smarter than you . . .

. . . if you spell the word definitely wrong (e.g., definately).

. . . if you misuse words in your writing (e.g., waste instead of waist).

. . . if you think to, too and two are interchangeable (same thing goes for there, their and they're).

. . . if you write that you "must of" done something wrong (instead of must have).

. . . if you use the following substitutions in your emails**: da instead of the, 2 instead of to, u instead of you, etc.

. . . if you say "liberry"*** instead of library.

Maybe I should have been an English teacher.

Also, whether it's fair or not, I apply a double standard****. I am much more likely to let some of these slide if you're someone that I like as opposed to someone I don't, or if you're a friend or casual acquaintance instead of someone I'm in a relationship with. I haven't kept it a secret that I'm a shallow person. A woman has to be attractive to pique my interest, but believe it or not, good looks alone aren't enough to keep me interested. That's where sense of humor and intellect come in.






*Anyone who doesn't believe me should go talk to my ex-wife. She'll tell you the same.

**It's one thing to do it in text messages, and another if you do it in emails. If you use them in text messages I'll only be mildly annoyed, but can understand if you think it saves you that much effort (even though it doesn't).

***See?


****Especially if I'm the one that makes the mistake, in which case I'm still smarter than you.

Are you ready?

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a wonderful celebration last night, but I hope you're not too hung over because I'm giving you a pop quiz today. As always, there are correct answers. I will post the key at a later time. Good Luck!



1. Which of the following choices is the best option for breakfast on any ordinary day?

A)


B)


C)


2. Which of the options in question 1 is the best choice to be one's first meal of 2008?


3. What is wrong with the following picture?



A) There is nothing wrong with the picture.

B) The Mountain Dew bottle is way too small for Silent Kid's face.

Everybody bitchin' there's nothin' on the radio

It's that time again - The time where I tell you my favorite albums of the year. As always, the list is limited to music that was released in 2007, not good stuff that was released earlier but I just got around to picking up (e.g., Muse - Black Holes and Revelations; Silversun Pickups - Carnavas). Also excluded are albums with music that is supposed to be good, but I haven't gotten around to listening to the CDs in their entirety yet (sorry LCD Soundsystem, Against Me!, and The Shins). There are also a few albums that probably should have made the list, but didn't because they didn't live up to my expectations. Sure, that might not seem fair because expectations can be unrealistic, but it's my list, I'll do what I want.

Here are the albums that fell short:

Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
I was introduced to Ryan Adams while I was getting on an elevator following a phylogenetic systematics lab when I was working on my master's degree. A friend of mine told me that he thought I'd like the recently released album Gold (which coincidentally is playing on my itunes as I type this). I gave it a listen and really liked what I heard. I picked up Heartbreaker and Demolition right away, and liked them both as well. Since then I've purchased every album that Ryan Adams has released, and they all have some brilliant stuff, but somehow in his rush to release three albums a year, the filter's been lost. If the good stuff off each album was combined onto one, and the rest just left as B-sides, every album would still be brilliant. As it is now, they're mediocre. Of all his albums, Heartbreaker remains my favorite, followed closely by Gold. I'm sad to say it, but I think Ryan Adams' best work is behind him. Now let's just hope he doesn't call me up and bitch me out for my opinion.

The White Stripes - Icky Thump
This album also had some good stuff on it, but I lost interest after the first three tracks. I especially like the songs Icky Thump and You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)(tracks 1 and 2 respectively), but then I hate some of the other songs on this CD. Conquest, although a cover, is one of the worst songs I've ever heard in my life. Same goes for Rag & Bone. You don't get to make the favorites list if your album includes stinkers like those. Sorry Jack, that's just the way it is.

Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
I really liked this band's first album, Silent Alarm. I've been excited for this CD to come out since I saw them in concert a year and a half ago and they played a couple songs from it. Again, there's some good stuff here, like Hunting For Witches which sounds great, but this album is no Silent Alarm. I'm hoping that this is the typical sophomore slump and that their future releases will be better. Time will tell.

Radiohead - In Rainbows
Radiohead should get bonus points for the unique way in which they "released" this one (For those who don't know, they made it available on their website a few months before its official release, and let fans pay whatever they felt like paying. However, they took it down a short while before it was released in stores, so I don't think the offer still stands.), but even those wouldn't be enough to put them on the list. It's that expectations thing. I thought it would be better. My favorite track is House of Cards (a song which my friend Silent Kid called trite, but I just can't help it, it must speak to me). Again, I probably set my expectations too high for this one. While I doubt the band will ever produce anything as good as OK Computer (their best album by far), I'd still like to see something a little closer to that, The Bends or Pablo Honey than to Kid A or Hail to the Thief. I probably bought into the hype a little too much when people were saying this was about the same as OK Computer. It's not. I agree that it went in that direction a little, but not enough for my liking. Hence, it didn't live up to my expectations. There was an ongoing joke with one of the other grad students in my department who said he didn't like it as much as some of the others. Everybody else kept telling him that he "just didn't understand." Even though I was one of the people telling him that, I actually agree with him on this. It just took me a few more listens to realize it. Oh, did I mention this album didn't live up to my expectations?

Ok, enough complaining about what wasn't good enough to put on the list, and on to what was. I realize that most people that do end of year lists usually do lists of ten, but I'm with Silent Kid on this one. I'm only putting nine on mine. Nonconformists unite!

My favorite albums of 2007:

9) Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
It sucks to admit this, but I'd never heard of Iron & Wine until the rest of the world did. That is, when the movie Garden State came out. Oh well, better late than never, right? My favorite Iron & Wine album is still In The Reins (the collaboration he did with Calexico), but this one has some really good stuff on it as well. My favorite song on this album is The Devil Never Sleeps (from which the title to this post was taken). That said, the album as a whole just made it on the list by the skin of its non-existent teeth, simply for the reason that it didn't stay in the CD player in my car as long as the rest of the CDs on the list did. A little thing I like to call the car CD player test - It's perfect for ranking things like these.

8) Rogue Wave - Asleep at Heaven's Gate
I just found out about this band this year when a friend of mine mailed me two of their CDs. I received it just in time for my British Columbia trip, so that music and Canada will always be linked in my mind. Shortly after I returned I saw that this new one had been released, so I picked it up. I liked what I heard. Later I felt validated when I heard one of the songs off the album in a movie preview. Not that I need that kind of validation to know that I listen to good music, but someone else obviously felt the same way, even if it was just some marketing executive who was trying to appeal to young hipsters (not that I would call myself a young hipster, or anything remotely close to that).

7) Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
I know I'm cool because this band is one of my myspace friends. I was one of the first to hear the single Is There A Ghost because they sent it out as a bulletin. I love myspace. It makes me feel cool. Anyway, I liked it immediately. This is a band whose music appears in commercials (more on this later). The reason this CD didn't get ranked higher is that even though I really like their music, I rarely find myself saying "I'm really in the mood for hearing some Band of Horses right now." Instead it's more like, "Well, I haven't listened to that CD for a while, and I don't want to hear anything else instead so I guess I'll put it in." When I do that, I'm always reminded how good it is, but never before it gets to that point. I don't know exactly why that is. Still, it's worth giving a listen. I played it while I was in the shower this morning, so now you can listen to it and picture me lathering up my scrotum. Tell me that's not a ringing endorsement.

6) Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
I'm not entirely sure that I should list this album as high as I have. It suffers from the same phenomenon where I forget how much I like it until after I start playing it, but I'm giving it a boost because it's Nine Inch Nails. The album gets a little too political for my liking, but since I, too, hate George W. Bush, I agree with what's being said. I just wonder about this album's staying power once he leaves office. Again, this didn't live up to the quality of past albums (Pretty Hate Machine is still my favorite), but it's pretty solid. Plus, I have to include it so that people won't think I've lost my edge, even if Trent Reznor seems to be losing his.

5) They Might Be Giants - The Else
It hurts to have to list one of my two favorite bands so low on the list, but the simple fact of the matter is, I couldn't justify putting this album any higher. Not even with the bonus disc that contained 32 songs from the band's podcasts (which I lost somewhere - Boo!). That's not to say I didn't like this CD, because I enjoyed it immensely. Just not as much as the ones higher on the list. There are some really fun songs on here, like The Mesopotamian's (about a fictional band that nobody's ever heard of), The Shadow Government (seriously, where is the shadow government when you need it?), or Take Out The Trash (dedicated to my sister, and her ex-fiance). This is the best They Might Be Giants album to come out since Mink Car in 2001.

4) Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
I first heard Spoon on a cross country road trip with my ex-girlfriend. She was a huge fan and I heard three albums of theirs on the way to Durham, NC from Las Vegas. Not that I'm complaining. I'd like to pick up a few more since I only have two: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and Gimme Fiction. This one definitely passes the car CD player test. Once I put it in, I don't ever seem to want to take it out (Is that a euphemism? Probably.). It doesn't hurt that this one came with a bonus disc as well: Get Nice! which contained an extra 12 tracks. Apparently I'm a sucker for getting as many songs as possible for my $13. I wish more bands did this.

3) Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
If you've seen a Volkswagen commercial within the past year, you've heard a song off this album. If you've seen multiple Volkswagen commercials, you've heard multiple songs. One of my friends joked that he thought Wilco sold out. I just think they did what every other band tries to do, and that is to get paid for making music. Wilco is the other of my favorite bands (I can't ever seem to choose between them and They Might Be Giants, so they both get the nod: They're co-favorites). Sky Blue Sky is a lot more mellow than previous albums, but that's not a bad thing in this case. Although, my favorite song from these sessions was The Thanks I Get, which wasn't included on the album itself, but was released as an itunes exclusive. I asked for this CD for my birthday, but it wasn't released for another few weeks, so nobody got it for me (they wanted to me to get stuff that I could use right away instead. Jerks). So, I bought it for myself, along with a cool t-shirt. One way to ensure that you get what you want is to buy it yourself. That's my motto.

2) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Baby 81
I was lucky enough to see these guys on tour, even though it was a few days after my car broke down and I had no transportation. A friend of mine introduced me to this band when they found out I was such a big Wilco fan. She said they reminded her a lot of Wilco. However, I'd have to go with another friend's opinion, that they sound like The Jesus and Mary Chain, but better. He went to the concert with me, and even though it was in an arcade because the original venue went bankrupt or something, it was a lot of fun. This album rocks from start to finish, but my favorite tracks would have to be Berlin, Need Some Air and All You Do Is Talk (and it was hard narrowing it down to just those three). Plus, the band has a cool name. They also have a skull and crossbones logo, so you know they're tough. Except the crossbones are really motorcycle pistons. Still tough.

1) Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
Once I bought this CD I don't think I listened to anything else for weeks. It gained the ultra rare status of being carried with me from the stereo in my bedroom, to the car, to the office (before I loaded it into my itunes there). There's the catchy (and perhaps overly optimistic) track Dashboard that you can't help but tap your toes to, but my favorite song off this CD is Missed the Boat. I know some people who think this album is too poppy, and not enough like their old stuff. I disagree. It's not as poppy as Good News For People Who Love Bad News, which launched them into the mainstream with hits like The Ocean Breathes Salty and Float On. This one brings back some of the "screaming voice" for lack of a better term, but is much better than any of the band's older stuff. This is my favorite Modest Mouse album by far.

So, there you have it. If you're looking for some new music, and didn't know which direction you should go, those are my suggestions.

The Colonel's kernels and chicken and corn

It's been a while since I've given a pop-quiz. Plus, today's a Nevada state holiday, so you can count this as kind of a roll call to see who the diligent readers are. Answer the following question:

Q: Which of the methods listed below is the correct way to eat corn?

A) Random bites taken from around the cob:


B) Going around the cob all the way first before moving to either side (the phonograph cylinder method):


C) Finishing an entire row of kernels on a cob before moving up or down (the typewriter method):


D) Canned and creamed:


E) Candied:





(And yes, there is only one right answer.)

Good morning how are you I'm Dr. Worm.

One of the benefits of being a grad student is that you are allowed to check books out from the library for a semester at a time. Then, at the end of the semester when it's due, you can just check it out for another few months if you need to. One drawback to that is that it's a lot of time in which something can be misplaced.

I've had one book for the better part of a year. I use it regularly, and should probably just buy my own copy, but as they say, why buy the cow when you get the milk for free? (oh, that's not what that saying pertains to? hmmm, I'm confused.) Anyway, while I was working on the written portion of my comps (not to be confused with Mein Kampf), I'd come across a few other books that had been cited and appeared to be useful sources for me to use, so, I checked those out as well. Then, sometime in early January I took everything back to the library.

Or so I thought.

I got a letter from the library saying that the cow, I mean the book, was overdue. Knowing that I had returned it a few weeks prior to the letter, I went to the circulation desk and filled out some paperwork to have them extensively search the library so that they could find it.

Nothing came up.

I got another letter telling me that they had searched for it but couldn't find anything. They told me I should once again search my house, car, etc. just in case I had misplaced it. They also said that if it didn't turn up then I was going to have to pay a replacement fee. That made me upset. I went back to the library and told them that it hardly seemed fair that I was going to have to pay to replace a book that they had lost. They weren't very sympathetic. After all, they probably hear excuses for this kind of thing all the time, but this time it was me. I'm never wrong. I stopped short of telling them they were incompetent, but it was definitely implied.

Another week went by and I found the book. It was tucked into my laptop case from when I flew to Massachussetts for my friends' wedding. Rather than swallow my pride and admit that I was wrong, I was going to just pay the fine and keep the book. Unfortunately, I'm broke right now and can't afford to do that. Plus, they add a $35 processing fee to the overall cost of the book. I figure if I buy it myself I should pay the cost of the book and no more. So, I took it back this morning.

When I turned it in I did what anyone in my situation would have done. I lied and told them that my mother had borrowed it without asking.

So let's keep things neutral, stick to topics that won't bug us

I mentioned the fact that I was giving a Christmas present to my ex-wife to a friend of mine the other day. He acted a little surprised, and I guess that's a normal reaction, but I don't think we're like most divorced people. We're actually still pretty good friends. At least most of the time.

As is likely the case with any divorced couple, there are certain topics that still bring out very strong emotions when they come up. Things that she and I will never see eye to eye on, and still fight about at times. Of course, the things that make me upset are all valid. The things that upset her are all stupid (just agree with me on this). Without getting into any details about what those things might be, just know that one of them came up last night while I was talking to her on the phone after we'd discussed Christmas plans. It got to the point where I just hung up the phone because I didn't feel like dealing with it any more*.

Then I had to go wrap her present. When I placed a label on the package I really wanted to write down one of the following:

To: My ex-wife
From: Thank God for the prefix

To: The bitch I used to be married to
From: The saint who can do no wrong

I just wrote our names though. It is Christmas time after all.


*we talked again this morning and she said her apologies after I'd had a chance to explain some things to her, so we're back to being friendly.

Rob the grave to snow the cradle and burn the evidence

I know that car manufacturers and dealers are just out to make a buck, but can't we come up with some kind of legislation so that old people aren't allowed to buy 'hot chick' cars? It really sucks when I'm pulling up to a light and get my hopes up only to look over and see a grandma sitting where a hot girl should be.

Since the world revolves around me I think this should be required. If not, then there should be some kind of standardized bumper sticker that they're required to put on there which says something along the lines of "My grandkids are cuter than yours."

I'm glad we got that taken care of.

What you want and what you need don't mean that much to me

I got in a huge argument with my ex-wife the other day. The kind of argument that only she can get me into (she really knows how to push my buttons). You see, I made the mistake of trying to help her get on her feet after I moved out. She had spent the majority of our marriage staying home with our kids, and was just finishing up her first year of school when she decided it was over and told me to move out.

Since she had no formal training, I felt like I should do what I could to help her out, so I continued to pay all her bills for the next few months, and co-signed on a student loan so that she could enroll in a program that would train her to become a dental assistant. That turned out to be a huge mistake. She dropped out of the program with only two weeks left to go, so still didn't have the job skills she was after, but did have a loan payment to take care of. She didn't because she had no income. It almost went into default so I started making payments in order to keep my credit clean. I paid it for two years, but then hurt my back and couldn't go back to my part time job where I had hurt it. With this change (while I am much happier now) came a huge decrease in my income, and then she went out and bought a new car. I figured if she could afford a new car payment every month then she was doing better than I thought, so she could start making her student loan payment as well. I told her that I couldn't afford to pay it anymore and that she would have to take over. She agreed, and thanked me for taking care of it that long.

The other night I got a phone call from a collection agency. They wanted to inform me that they had not received payment for two months, and if they didn't by midnight they would have to put it on my credit. I called her to find out if she was planning on taking care of it, and why she had been ignoring their notices. As soon as she found out that I was upset with her, she started yelling at me about "how dare I embarrass her in front of her daughter" when I had seen them a few weeks prior. And let me tell you, it was a profanity laced tirade. It was a diversionary tactic to get the focus off of her.

A few weeks ago I was passing through Salt Lake City on my son's birthday. I took them all out to dinner to celebrate that with him, and she and my daughter got into an argument at the restaurant. I just looked at both of them and told them to stop. My ex looked at me and said "she does this all the time." To which I replied, "I think you started that one. You need to learn to pick your battles, and this one isn't worth fighting."

When she brought it back up on the phone she asked "How do you think that made me feel?"

I just said "We're divorced now. We don't really have to worry about whether or not we hurt each other's feelings. Just pay your student loan."

She did. But should it really have to include so much drama?