Borderline TMI

Mainstream Blogging Sample, and Some Things That Amuse Me

2010-04-12T15:57:00.002-04:00

I’m going to try and become a more mainstream blogger. I want to be nationally recognized and linked from every major website and become a part of the local, regional, and national news media. In my first effort to do this, I’m going to write the next paragraph to represent exactly what you found all weekend on all the major news networks, the local radio and TV, the national media from ESPN to CNN, and so on. It was as if nothing else was going on in the entire world. Here is my first attempt to become part of the mainstream media:

Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. President of Poland dies in plane crash. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods.

That should do it. Watch as my page-views soar and I will be awaiting the contractual offer from some major news syndicate shortly.

I mean, good God guys, I’m a sports fan. And I’m a Tiger Woods fan (former?), if we’re speaking for his golf abilities ONLY. But good God make it stop. He didn’t even win the tournament. He tied for 4th. Which is amazing after his 4+ month hiatus from a game that takes so much concentration and focus and repeatability. But, but, but – he is not the center of the entire fucking universe.

Moving on, Things That Amuse Me:

*The First Couple Steps in Mapquest Directions*
I love how when you get directions from Mapquest or any other map/directions site, the first couple steps are so stupidly basic. Yes, I know how to leave my own neighborhood! They might as well start with:
- Stand up from your computer chair. 0ft.
- Grab directions from printer. 4ft.
- Get drink from fridge. 60ft.
- Get in vehicle. 40ft.
- Pull out of driveway. 15ft.

And then pick up on the real beginning of directions. I mean, to leave my subdivision is two turns. Two, to be on one of the area’s decently major roads. But use Mapquest for anything leaving there and those two turns are broken down into four steps. Four. Maybe Mapquest should just add a button to click when you click, “Get Directions”. Click “Get Directions”, or click “Get Directions Starting On The First Main Road Leaving My Starting Point Because I’m Not Fucking Retarded”.

I have three stories from this past weekend to put under the same back story, so to type that once:
This past weekend, I decided to take the boy to his first big league ballgame. Well, Triple A, but close enough! We have the Baltimore Orioles Triple A affiliate here locally in Hampton Roads, and there’s a couple major leaguers on the team and their opponents usually. So it’s cool to see some up-and-coming players sometimes. Well, he’s almost three and it was time! We drove over and picked up his “papa”, my dad, and had a three-generational-father-son-son night of it at the ballpark.

*Kids Say the Darndest Things*
So, we’re driving over to pick up my dad to head to the ball park. It’s about a half-hour drive, all interstate. Actually, to get anywhere around here between our 7 cities, it’s all interstate. So we’re heading there when along side of us on our drive, there’s two crotch-rocket sport bikes fooling around and speeding around through traffic. I used to have a 1000cc rocket myself and know what it’s like to have that kind of power in your hands, which is hellafied exhilarating, but I never messed around in traffic on the interstate. These guys were zooming all around, speeding, then slowing to make room so they could fly again. I put my son’s window down and tried, remaining NOT-reckless myself, to keep them on my right side so my son could watch them. He was loving it. He was going crazy, probably thinking that these two bikes were putting on a show for him. At one point, one of them did a wheelie for essentially about a half-mile in the lane to my right, in interstate traffic, maybe they did see lil HokieJayBee and they were putting on a show for him.

He was eating it up, going ballistic with excitement and laughter. And the way he says, “motorcycle” sounds more like “MURDERcycle”, so fitting watching these two idiots dance around the interstate at high speeds, in traffic.

*It’s Not What It’s Worth, It’s What People Will Pay For*
On the same drive over to pick up my dad, I saw the new business model for modern ingenuity. It’s spring here, people’s allergies are acting up, and people’s cars are generally a tone of some sort of yellow.

We drove by a gas station on the way. There was a guy out front with a hose and a sign, “$3 Pollen Spray Off After You Fill Up”.

He had a line.

*Hey Wait, That Sounds Like a Brand of Cookies*
So, with all the background about our drive over to the ballpark, I guess I could actually end with a story AT the ballpark. When we were waiting in line to buy our tickets, there were two, very young, very attractive, very YOUNG women in front of us. Probably from one of the local colleges. They were flirting up a storm with lil HokieJayBee. He is a cutie! And he went into shy-mode-1.0. Like, he’s not shy, ever. Until now.

I mean, literally in the same ticket line, he was hamming it up with the couple in line behind us. A little older than me, nothing special or un-special about them, but just a husband/wife there to enjoy the game. And lil HokieJayBee put on his usual non-shy show for them. Not 2 minutes later when the attention from the young ladies started, did he shut right down and literally hide between my legs, actually blushing.

Later, when we got to our seats, I commented to papa HokieJayBee how funny it was, that even at this early of an age, boys seem to have a gene that makes them clam up in the presence or attention of attractive young females. And I jokingly told lil HokieJayBee that this won’t be the last time he clams up like that around cute girls. He had no idea what I was talking about and just wanted more Sprite.

So I have no idea, nor am I able to transpose for you how the conversation wandered as it did. I shouldn’t even begin to try and list the progression of the ideas in the conversation, but it went something like this:

- lil HokieJayBee shy in line in front of girls.
- I remark about how even at that young age, boys are like that.
- I wonder what they’re doing here at the ballpark alone.
- They probably go to one of the local colleges.
- Meeting dudes at a ballpark seems like a logical idea.
- They must be freshman.
- They haven’t put on the freshman 15 yet.
- Clearly not in the Navy (my dad is a retired Navy pilot).
- Or if they are, they have office jobs, because girls like that don’t get sent underway.
- Or if they are stationed on a ship, they haven’t been long.
- Because they haven’t yet put on the Navy’s freshman 15 yet.

“Hips Ahoy!”

Yeah. Papa HokieJayBee shoots and scores with that one. And it’s officially added to my repertoire.

Another Unfortunate Overheard, and Some Hope.

2010-03-26T14:59:00.001-04:00

Overheard on Sportscenter the Other Night.
I had Sportscenter on the other night, for a little background noise. I was in the kitchen crafting the boy a peanut butter and jelly masterpiece, with a cup of peaches and some mini-carrots too. My son was playing in the sunroom. He was bouncing back and forth between riding his three-wheeler-scooter-bigwheel-bike-contraption in a circle around the room, and shooting hoops with his mini-indoor-basketball hoop. I would saunter from the kitchen area to steal a quick peek now and then to make sure he hasn’t removed any limbs or donated too much blood to the hard wood floor out there.

So anyways, like I said, Sportscenter was on for some background noise. And it was the hockey segment. There was some Canadian mullet up there talking about the Washington Capital / Pittsburgh Penguin rivalry. (I’m not being rude here, Barry Melrose really has a full on business-on-top-party-in-the-back mullet). He was going on and on about how Pittsburgh is (7-1) against Washington in their last 8 playoff games, but Washington is (3-0) against them this regular season, Pittsburgh has Crosby, Washington has Ovechkin, etc. etc. etc.

Then, mid peanut butter spread (with a KNIFE dammit), he said it. Discussing how good Pittsburgh’s defense is, when all players are healthy.
“Oh man, when everyone is back on the ice, their back end is so good, and it’s so deep.”

Dude, my nearly-three-year-old son is listening. Have some class.

I think I Actually Have Hope for America.
Unfortunately, racial tension still exists in America. And, unfortunately, it exists where I live. I live in a very diverse area. There are some bad parts of town. You can read that how you want, “bad part” can just as much mean the uppity white mansion neighborhood as much as it means a predominantly black downtown government housing area, it depends on the point of view.

There aren’t a lot of blatant racial issues or physical fights, and not a lot of racially toned issues on the news – but it’s there. It’s there in traffic, it’s there in the grocery store, it’s there at the bank, it’s there at the restaurants, it’s there at work. It’s unfortunate, but you can still feel it and sense it sometimes. As a white dude, I have “oh shit” moments all the time and feel bad that someone might even feel made fun of by me and my whiteness, even if I didn’t say anything wrong. It really sucks to be a white dude sometimes.

Rarely would it be, oh man I hope that black/Mexican/Asian/Green/Purple guy didn’t hear what I said – like I don’t have stupid moments of racial-bigotry-emission. But I do have the feeling inside sometimes like, oh man I hope they don’t think we’re talking about them or oh man I wish they knew the context of what we’re talking about. Because when I said, “I chased that motherfucker out of my garage before he could steal that shit”, I meant the neighbor’s cat that I’ve caught in there going at my dog food or biscuits, not some neighborhood [insert race here] kid stealing my bike. Because if I were on my cell at the store and said that quote near a group of [insert race here] kids, I would just KNOW they think I’m talking about them and being all white and racist and shit.

So anyways, about my hope for America. I was out at a restaurant and bar the other night with a friend. We’re both in our 30’s, white, educated, stereotypical business white-guy-shit. We were both in our suit pants from work, with a starched collar dress shirt and all, out for a beer and a couple games of Golden Tee. [if you’ve never played, keep it that way, trust me, it’s like heroin. Not that I know what heroin is like.] We were in the back room of said restaurant, where the Golden Tee machine is, nestled in with the dart boards and pool tables. On the pool table closest to our machine, there was a group of 3 young black guys and 2 young black girls.

They were not dressed in dress pants and starched collars. There were some dreadlocks, some tattoos, some gold teeth, some saggy jeans, some really high leather boots. They literally looked like they just left a video shoot from a BET production.

Which me and my boy E were totally cool with. But there was that tension, right?

I’m an outgoing dude. I broke the ice. I chatted with them between shots. I made fun of the one girl’s jukebox choices. I made fun of the one dude’s straight shot that he missed. They made fun of us, the second we walked in we were destined for the golf game and not pool, they knew by our clothes. We talked some playful trash. Challenged them and kicked the shit out of them in 3 games of pool. Played some more golf. Had a beer with them. Suggested shooters they’d like for the one girl’s birthday they were there celebrating. It was quite an enjoyable ~hour or two at the restaurant. The 7 of us who didn’t belong together, if you were just going on the looks of the group from the outside, if you buy into that tension crap.

When their group went to leave, one guy went to the restroom before leaving. On his way back out, meaning he is now last of his group still back there, he came by to say bye one last time. He walked up, called us by name, and shook our hands. He said thanks. He said thanks for the great birthday we helped give his friend’s girlfriend. He said it turned out way different than he feared when the two white business men walked into the back game room at the restaurant and took up shop on the golf machine next to their pool table. He said it was a refreshing surprise, and he had hope for America. I do too Charles, I do too.

PS - I mean it, I really don’t know what heroin is like.

3 Blurbs

2010-03-22T16:10:00.001-04:00

Overheard In The Office The Other Day:
Near my office at work in one of the hallways, there’s some wall damage. It’s a hole that was cut by the IT guys or the electricians to pull wires. I don’t know enough about that kind of installation work to claim there’s a better way to do it or they could have done it with tools or wall snakes to avoid damaging the wall – and I’m not going to suggest that maybe after cutting the hole to get the wires pulled through where they needed, that maybe they could have patched the hole.

Side note: I’m using the term “cut the hole” loosely. Well, at least the word “cut”. It seems more of a punched or some sort of other blunt force trauma created hole. So it’s not even a professional-looking-hole-in-the-wall-in-your-office-hallway-for-electrical-installation, it’s more of a drunken-frat-party-punched-hole, if that makes sense.

I mean, maybe the IT/electricians were told not to worry about the damage, that a more mechanically inclined contractor would follow and do repair type work to the structure itself. Maybe the plan was to repaint anyways, so don’t worry about the damage, we’ll fix it when we repaint.

Side note again: we moved into this building in January 2009. I’m thinking the repainting or second mechanical contractor idea isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

But, not to worry, someone had a fix for the situation. It unfortunately became a null and void fix on January 1, 2010. When the 2009 calendar hung over the hole ended. No one has replaced with a 2010 version yet. Whoever removed the calendar made the choice that visible wall damage in the office hallway was a better look than a pretty landscape picture calendar from last year.

So, near my office at work in one of the hallways, there’s some wall damage.

There’s a gentleman in my office, who is quiet, straight-laced, never treads the line of improper or crass, and doesn’t dance the socially unacceptable line or play on innuendos. Ever. He had his hand in the hole in the wall the other day, “trying to figure out what wiring or electrical work they were doing that needed the hole.”

Overheard:
Co-worker 2 – “Hey careful, that was cut by the electricians to pull some wiring through here and they never put in a junction box, I wouldn’t go poking around in there.”
Hand-in-hole-guy – “Yeah, you’re right, I was just curious. My wife says I’m always poking my fingers around in holes I shouldn’t be.”

Really? Hand, hole, electrical wiring, finger, forbidden holes,………..must……not……….make……….shocker………….joke…………..must…………….remain…….quiet………in………..office

High In Iron:
This past weekend I spent Saturday out of town at one of my college buddy’s house. Myself and three of my best friends of all time had a boys day in, watching March Madness, grilling out for two meals, and generally finding the bottom of a-couple-too-many Miller Lites. I had green poopy a couple times on Sunday.

So That’s Everyone?
A good friend of mine and I play in a local flag football league together. He was asked to play by some friends of his from high school and then extended the invite to me when they still needed one more guy. His group of friends are all deputies in one nearby town’s sheriff’s department. Besides me and my friend, the team is actually just the department team from the sheriff’s office. Like, we’re on “the cop team”.

Needless to say, any time we get a close call in the game from the refs, there’s no shortage of conspiracy theories or claims of favoritism for the local deputies from the opposing team’s whines. Or when one guy on the other team was being a real jerk about something, one of the deputies replied with, “careful son, or we’ll see you on Friday”. That kind of stuff is funny. Or when one ref made like 7 calls in a row against us, we asked him if he was making up for a string of parking tickets or something.

I’ll add a side note here that a lot of these guys are in phenomenal shape, and work out a lot. And they are obviously very well trained in law enforcement tactics. This, unfortunately, does not project directly into football ability. But I digress.

The reason I’m writing to you here today about my sheriff football team though, is the chuckle I had at the game last week. The “nearby town” I speak of for this story isn’t a big town. And we’re on the flag football team with about 12 deputies. Last week, we were in the offensive huddle forming our play when two patrol cars went screaming by the field, lights and sirens a blazing.

“Heh, there goes Wilson and Stecker.”
“You could see the decals on the car and know which two cars that was?”
“No. They’re the only two on duty. We’re all here.”

Priorities

2010-03-10T11:10:00.006-05:00

There are two very important people in my life that I owe some time and attention. To many people or reader(s) out there, this might not mean a lot. But to the two most important people in my life, I made a couple of pictures for you. I love you.

Rip Van Winkle. And Some Subtle Hints in the Bathroom.

2010-03-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

Check this out people. Two days in a row with a post. Three business days in a row if you count Friday’s post and my standard of not posting on the weekends. Wow. Don’t know what I owe this honor to, but at least I’m getting some thoughts down.

It’s kind of therapeutic. Writing. In general. It doesn’t even have to be good. It doesn’t even have to really be about what’s really on my mind. I just find myself gaining clarity and feeling better about the constant battle in my head between sane thoughts and idle demonic chatter, when I’m writing. Maybe the whole idea of clearing out the nonsense through a simple blog like this, allows me to truly think about what’s important more easily when I do propose to sit and reflect.

Now that I’ve walked you in a complete circle of what-the-hell-is-he-talking-about…..

*Rip Van Winkle.*
He slept for what, 20 years in the original story? Fable? Folk tale? Or a 100 years. Who cares, the point is that Mrs. HokieJayBee and I got rid of one Rip Van Winkle aspect of our lives last night. I don’t know why we were hiding under that rock for so long, but we were. So we woke up from our extended slumber and wandered back into town, just like Rip. And you should too, if you haven’t.

Go see Avatar. Now. If you haven’t, go see it now. Leave work. Get a sitter. Skip your meeting. Skip dinner. Go see it. Now.

It is absolutely the most ridiculously well done movie I’ve seen in a LONG time. The story is predictable to a point, but aren’t 99.9% of movies anyways? When a movie like Sixth Sense or Seven or the original Saw comes out, isn’t it the abnormal movie to have a surprise rather than the norm? So Avatar’s predictability didn’t bother me at all. I was too lost in the world James Cameron built. The scenery, the storyline working into said scenery (literally), and the action scenes are just – I hate to repeat a word – RIDICULOUS. It is an amazing movie.

Go see it now*. Seriously, you’ll thank me.

*This is also based on the assumption that the rumors that Mrs. HokieJayBee and I were the only warm blooded Americans over the age of 12 that had not seen it yet, are not true. There’s bound to be a couple other people pulling a Rip Van Winkle. Right? If you are one of those few remaining people, go see it.

*Subtle Hints in the Bathroom.*
Mrs. HokieJayBee and I have been together for almost 12 years, and married for almost 8. All couples get to that point, you know, where you, uh, um, have no shame.

There’s even Man Laws about it. One of which states that, as a man, you cannot flatulate in front of a woman until you’ve gotten her to climax. And, that if you do flatulate in front of her, she is now officially your girlfriend. And, continued, if you do so while at the same time trapping her under any sort of sheets or blanket, you are either already married to her, or you inherently just proposed to her through actions. And she is allowed to take it as such.

This is serious stuff people. I mean, you know that point where you shower in front of each other, not intimately. Or even shower together, purely for speed and efficiency, with zero intimacy. Yeah, that sucks. Then of course there’s the whole peeing in front of each other, and closing the door when you do so becomes optional. Or heaven forbid, even dropping the deuce in front of your spouse. Or even being in the shower for work in the morning, and your spouse comes in to drop said deuce, while you’re in the shower, and then hits you with the scalding-hot-water-after-toilet-flush-shower? And the stinky-humid-shower-bathroom air? Love is such a vile beast.

So, you see where I’m going. As a couple, certain boundaries and walls of privacy become non-existent. That’s fine. It’s a natural progression of comfort with your mate I guess.

In our relationship, there’s also the subtle, or sometimes not so subtle, hints that happen in the bathroom too. Mrs. HokieJayBee uses the corner of our bathroom counter, near my sink, to remind me of things, or give those hints. She’ll leave items for me on the corner that I need to use, whether I knew it or not. She doesn’t put maintenance items here. I’m not so incapable of self-sufficiency that I need her to put my toothbrush or my deodorant there. This special reminder spot is more for non-normal needs.

[1] Nail Clippers – pretty self explanatory. I bite my nails too often, so this won’t usually be because I need a trim there. It usually follows a time where maybe I complained about a certain cuticle or maybe I scraped her legs to the bone at night in my sleep with a razor sharp toe nail. When I find the nail clippers in the reminder spot, I simply check all 20 appendages for sharp edges, make any trimmings necessary, and put the clippers back in the cabinet.

[2] Hair Gel – exiting shower, hmmmm, hair gel in the reminder spot. We must be going out to something nice. I should gel my hair a little. And probably put on a collared shirt. Oh yeah, we’re going to get lil HokieJayBee’s pictures done, and we’ll take a family shot too. Thank you Honey!

[3] Steel Wool or a Sponge of some sort – my turn to clean the shower. Roger.

[4] Medicine – see previous post(s). I don’t take medicine. Unless of course there’s some in my reminder spot on the bathroom counter. Whining too much about my back and legs after a flag football weekend? Advil on the counter. 8 days into a 10 day run of antibiotics, where your attention is waning and you’re not following the perfect every 8 hour dosage because you’re not sick anymore and why am I still putting these chemicals in my body? She knows better. And you need to finish out the recommended dosage. Either way, medicine in the reminder spot gets taken.

[5] Q-Tips – see, I said that the reminder spot isn’t for maintenance items. I guess maybe she saw a need and left me a subtle hint? Sorry honey. Maybe I just have some dry skin in there. Yeah. That’s it. Just a patch of dry skin. Nothing else to read into suggested Q-Tipping.

[6] Mouthwash – ouch. I’ll get right on that.

And finally,

[7] Tweezers – ummmmmmm. I’m still lost on this one. I usually do a cursory check of the shoulders and upper arms for a freak hair that might need a yanking. Maybe check between the eyebrows to make sure I haven’t gone too far Cro-Magnon. And calmly put the tweezers away. Maybe she was using them and accidentally just left them there. Yeah. Probably nothing to look into when your wife leaves tweezers for you on the reminder spot. Nothing weird at all. At least I hope I haven’t missed anything that tweezers would be used for.

NOTE TO ALL NORMAL READER(S) OF THE BLOG:
Please ignore the following “paragraph”. I read an article online and I just wanted to test a couple theories it posed.

Megan Fox nude. Kobe Bryant. Twilight. Harry Potter. Lebron James. Hurt Locker. Dances with the Stars. Huge Tits.

Please Disregard the Security Alarm, Enjoy Your $20 Burger

2010-03-08T16:28:00.001-05:00

So, this past Saturday night, Mrs. HokieJayBee and I took lil HokieJayBee out for dinner with another couple and their young daughter. We talked before hand and wanted to find a spot that would be good for all parties (mainly the 2.5 year old and the 2 month old).

We obviously wanted a “family” place, i.e. not a bar type chain that happens to have some restaurant seating around. We didn’t want a quiet place, obviously as we’re bringing in a boy in the rarest form of terrible two’s lately – and a 2 month old. Lil HokieJayBee could burst out at any time with rant of some form, and of course a near-new born could chime in at any time as well if she were cold or hungry. But we also didn’t want too hectic of a place, i.e. Chuck E Cheese’s or something off the wall like that.

We chose a Red Robin burger place. It was family oriented, and just about the right amount of loud. It accepted lil HJB’s behavior pretty fine. We started out waiting right outside, letting lil HJB play with one of his Hotwheels on a nearby bench. We could see through the windows into the waiting area, and pounced when we saw some inside seating open up.

Once inside, bonuses include the fact that the hostesses give out balloons to youngins. This granted us roughly 4 minutes of sanity in the waiting area. Also filed under Bonuses, there’s a flat screen TV and speakers IN THE FLOOR of the waiting area, covered by Plexiglas that the kids can stand/jump on. +10 genius points to whoever thought that up. With the Nickelodeon or Wonderpets or whatever was on, we were granted another 7 minutes of sanity in the waiting area.

These bonuses, mathematicians can see, granted us approximately 11 minutes of sanity in the waiting area. Unfortunately, our wait was about 20 minutes. Of the other 9 minutes remaining, Mrs. HJB and I were able to successfully distract and parent lil HJB for another 8 minutes. Leaving 1 minute at risk while in the waiting area.

Shouldn’t be a problem. What can a 2.5 year old get into on some benches between the front door and hostess stand of a restaurant. We successfully kept him from the taller stool seating, no fall damage. We successfully kept him from the potted plants, no dirt on his clothes or on the floor. We secluded him to one side of one cushioned bench away from other patrons, no accidental touchy feely on the nice ladies’ boobs nearby. OOOOH BEWBS! No brain, I mean the lady looked like a nice enough older lady, not that the lady had nice breasts. Dammit.

Only problem with the corner we chose to seclude him to of the front area, on said bench. While standing on the bench seat itself, one 2.5 year old boy at full reach is exactly tall enough to reach the Security System Panel for the restaurant. Yeah. I’ll let you move ahead of me here in the story to know what’s coming next.

My son, Alarm Panel Security System Hacker that he already is, at 2.5 years old. Somehow armed the panel and set it into an instant alarm. LOUD. Not a little loud. A lotta loud. Like, deafening for the whole place. The whole place shut down. The cooks ran out. It was ridiculous.

One of the manager’s ran over and tried to disarm it (her code is 2218 if you live near Hampton Roads VA and want to rob the Red Robin restaurant), but in the state of the current alarm, whatever instant-alarm-of-death-and-bad-things that my son put it in, the screen actually told her she didn’t have the authority to override. I’m not shitting you here, I think it said, in three successive screen flashes, “Override Failed”, “No Authority”, “Need Lock Code”. Or in other words, you ain’t the General Manager and I’m going to continue to beep ridiculously loud with my horn sirens and all.

It was at this point, witnessing one of the manager’s fail at turning this thing off, that I started to really think we could be in for a closed restaurant, and maybe even a trip up for the police to find out who set this damn thing off. And Murphy’s Law would come too, and I’d be liable for some negligent parenting thing allowing him to do so, and I’d be liable for the restaurant’s lost wages for the remainder of the Saturday night or something. It was actually beginning to be a sucky story in my head.

Then a different manager ran over to the other panel behind the hostess stand and punched in a bunch of crap and the alarm stopped. Wow, talk about relief. Everyone cheered and everybody went about their merry way. Including my son who thought it was the funniest thing in the world. And we had to restrain him from trying to return to the panel above our bench.

It’s also hard to reprimand your son when you’re a little embarrassed at everyone staring at you, and when you’re trying your hardest to not laugh hysterically yourself.

Then dinner sucked. Don’t get me wrong, the burgers were “fine”. But for two burgers, two beers, and a kid’s meal, I’m not thinking $58 is a nice family dinner place. But, I guess you have to pay for the TV in the floor up front, and the cool alarm panel toy they have for your kids to set off.

((By the way, I’m kidding about the manager’s alarm code. I wouldn’t put it here if I did remember it and I wouldn’t suggest robbery anyways. ))

((By the way part II, WTF with the alarm panel being in reach of the customers (kids) in the waiting area and not having some physical keypad cover, or electronic keypad lock, to keep this from happening. I can’t help but think my son isn’t the first 2.5 year old aspiring hacker that got that thing to go off.))

This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse, and Other Useless Ramblings, Back Again

2010-03-05T15:01:00.002-05:00

Guess who’s back.
Back again.
Jaybee’s back.
Tell a friend.

I guess following up a post bragging about my own adulthood and *not* lying to a hotel, by singing along to an Eminem song, kind of negates any semblance of adulthood? Bah, I’m cool with it.

Speaking of growing up:

*This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse – I Take Medicine.*
First off, I’m not being funny here or alluding to illicit drug use. I mean, medicine, like from the doctor. I’ve never trusted doctors, medication, or the whole health industry as a whole. I think there’s a lot of waste and recklessness in the industry. And I think there’s a lot of fake medicinal needs created by the industry. And subsequent medical dependencies, and then inherently substance abuse. And I think doctors are obviously in on the take from the whole industry and just get prescription happy with some all too powerful drugs. Mrs. HokieJayBee sprained her ankle one time at volleyball. Standard stuff. She went to the doctor to get an air cast. He prescribed her 10 days of Vicodin. 10 days of a knock-your-ass-out-painkiller for a twisted ankle.

I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t even take Advil for headaches or hangovers. I just don’t trust it all.

/step off soapbox

Then I grew up? Quick back story. Like I said in a previous post, Mrs. HokieJayBee is a public school teacher and lil HokieJayBee goes to daycare. So I live all winter every winter, near-sick. Not sick-sick, just kinda-near-sick. Constant congestion.

Well this last week, all hell broke loose in my sinuses. Like, severe clog. Pain. Throbbing. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t sleep. The right side of my head/face were broken.

I…………….went…………….to………………….the……………………..doctor. Gasp. I don’t go to the doctor. And I sure as hell don’t take meds.

Until this sinus thing. I’ve been on Mucinex, “super” Sudafed, and Prednisone steroids. Yeah. I done grown up I guess.

Side note: “super” Sudafed. I had to sign for it at the drug store. Penalty of a $250,000 fine if I get caught making Meth with it. Yeah, that’s where we are as a nation. And you wonder why I don’t trust doctors and medicines?

*Wrong Song Choice.*
I don’t know what you all watch on TV. I pretty much only watch sports. I catch the occasional sitcom or drama show with the Mrs., but in general I pretty much only watch sports. So, my standard run of commercials that I see on repeat could be different than the run of commercials you’re used to.

But bear with me. There’s this Blackberry commercial that has a Beatles song on it. And the setting of the commercial is this young rock band getting turned down at the studio, then they’re practicing like in their garage, and suddenly something clicks and they’re all great and happy and get a gig at a club.

Ok, I get it. Band works, can’t catch on, works more, something clicks, they don’t suck anymore, get noticed, get a gig, get chicks. All is good.
First, what the hell does Blackberry have to do with the price of rice and cow shit? These kids are like the young near-emo band of poor kids struggling to make it. They don’t have Blackberries.

Secondly, what the eff with the song choice? This commercial is all sad and then it’s will-they-make-it-happy story. The Beatles song is all down, and like, “you can never do what can’t be done.” Or “you can never sing what can’t be sung.” Not exactly pep talky music. But hey, maybe that’s why I’m not in marketing at Blackberry.

*Foreign Cities are Funny.*
So my company has a project we’re working in Vietnam, good stuff. International work, good money. And an immediate regression from that whole thing with me maturing and adulthood.
Overheard from down the hall at the office. The city where we’re building our project. (phonetically) “Dumb Kwat”. Yeah, say it out loud. That’s funny. Shut up. Yes it is. It sounds so dirty. Funny stuff, even though the city name probably means “green forest” or something like that.

I can haz adulthood?

2010-02-26T11:41:00.002-05:00

You know those moments you have where it begins to dawn on you that you're growing up? I don't mean the literal birthdays, like where you get cards that say "Happy 30th Birthday" so it's abundantly obvious that you're a year older or hit a milestone birthday. I mean the more subtle moments in life where you have realizations that you're maturing. Well fine, aging.

I mean, I do still eat Ramen noodles and EasyMac for snacks at work and play video games - so I'm just like an early-30-something college kid.....with my own kid. Who for some reason totally started calling us "mom" and "dad" and not "mommy" and "daddy" already. Yeah, he's not 3 yet. Kind of a weird feeling. I want to be "daddy" for a few more years.

But I digress. Oh yeah, moments in life where you realize you're growing up. There's the more blatant of even the subtle moments. Buying your first house. Filing Married2 on your taxes for the first time. Spending more on a vacuum than you did on a TV (don't laugh at this one, when you have two Siberian Huskies, you get the nice Dyson).

And then there's the other more subtle moments that take a little while to click.

This past weekend, Mrs. HokieJayBee and I traveled for her grandmother's funeral. Obviously a sad weekend, but it was good to see her entire family. Mrs. HokieJayBee's dad is one of 8 kids, so there's a lot of family spread throughout the world. So, albeit the reasoning was a sad one, getting everyone together was very nice and we had a good weekend of visits.

And our all-grown-up moment. We totally made a hotel reservation, and made it for three people and didn't lie and say it was for one person. Yeah. Don't scoff. You've done it too.

Hotel employees have to laugh at customers. I know I've been on bachelor party trips to hotels with the reservation made for one dude and for some reason this one dude reserves a 2 double bed room and needs 2 roll away beds.

This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse, and Other Useless Ramblings, Again and Again Again

2010-02-18T14:58:00.001-05:00

I’ll start this week’s jumble post with an update from last week’s. It turns out differently than you might think. Upon arrival at work in the morning one day recently, there was most definitely a Pepsi truck outside. A HA! I will now totally go in the kitchen and spy on this evil evil person and try and thwart their plan to make me buy Diet Caffeine Free Strawberry Clear Horrible Pepsi, when I want a Mt. Dew.

So I put my crap down on my desk and head to the kitchen to heat up my pop tart. Of course I normally don’t heat them up. They are definitely best served cold straight from the foil to your mouth. Frosted anything is win, cold. But my box of pop tarts was all I had even close to resembling a reason to head to the kitchen at 8:30something in the morning. There he is! Loading the machine as we speak, that evil evil man. So, first, I was right last week, I do hate my Pepsi *guy*. He didn’t look too menacing. Looked like a pretty normal guy. We had the generic-two-guys-who-don’t-know-each-other-head-bob-“what’s up”-moment. I went to the microwave and turned to watch him complete his evil soda machine loading deeds.

And I totally saw him do it with diet Slice/Sierra Mist (whatever Pepsi Sprite is) mixed in with the Dr. Pepper!!!

Me, being of nice, polite, and totally always able to keep quiet and not be outwardly not-bashful or shy about aggressively approaching someone……maybe I did say, “Sweet! More Diet Caffeine Free Flavored Pepsi stuff when I want a Mt. Dew.” Maybe I did say it.

And here’s the shocker. His reply, “Yeah…..sorry about that. That’s what they tell us to do at the distribution center to get rid of the crap that don’t sell. Otherwise it’s just trash and we can’t sell it past a certain date.”

I didn’t reply along the lines of, “well it’s trash either way, before that certain date.”, but I wanted to. But seriously, read that. The local Pepsi bottling/distribution plant teaches their drivers to load the popular soda racks with the stuff that doesn’t sell??? Wow. I mean I guess it makes sense that they might vaguely make suggestions to their drivers on how to move some of the slow moving product. But for it to come off almost like a policy? That’s a little disturbing to me.

I think Jeremy (well at least that’s what the Pepsi patch on his shirt said) saw how taken aback and surprised I was at hearing this. He reached into his crates and handed me a 20oz. Mt. Dew and said, “sorry about that last week.”

What I said, “ah no big deal man, thanks.”
What I was thinking, “HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP. Free soda! Free soda! This dude is cool in my book. Fill that machine maliciously to your heart’s content! Free soda! Free soda! Did you ever know that you’re my hero!!! The wind beneath my wings!!!! Free drink! Free drink!”

Sometime later that morning I returned to the kitchen to heat up some Ramen. Wait, what? You don’t still eat Ramen and pop tarts? I don’t care that I’m not in college anymore. Ramen is phenomenal. Worth every penny of the $0.06 price. I’m not kidding. Anyways, in the kitchen, on one of the tables, were about 6 sodas with a note to help oneself. The diet caffeine free craptastic ones. Wow, this guy not only gave me a free Mt. Dew, he stopped his evil maniacal ways and is giving out the lesser sodas too.

NOPE! Those must have just been the sodas so old he couldn’t even do the loading/selling trick. They must’ve been so old he couldn’t sell them. Because, even after my apology, my free soda, and the other free ones on the table – there was still crap soda blocking the good stuff in the machine. He totally bought my silence! My angst at the Pepsi delivery company can be silenced; I am a soda machine etiquette whore. I’m a damn soda popstitute.

*This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse – My Estrogen Levels are High*
It’s not really this week’s sign, since the events in question happened a couple weeks ago, I’m just getting around to writing about it now. But apparently my Estrogen levels spiked recently. My wife is a teacher. She had some free tickets to a local aquarium for us to use. Basically the aquarium was to be kept open late on a Friday night for local teachers and their families to go for free, outside of normal business hours. She had a flyer for the event. She sent me the flyer on e-mail. We reviewed it, determined we wanted to go. My parents and brother live pretty locally to us. We asked them if they wanted to go too, to see the aquarium with lil HokieJayBee. My mom couldn’t, but my dad and brother wanted to go with us.

We checked into the availability for us to bring additional family members to the special after-hours teacher’s family aquarium event. We had the flyer, we had the aquarium’s website, and we had the recording on the aquarium’s information line. All three differed on the topic. From teacher and immediate family only can come, to teacher plus family all free within reason, to teacher immediate family free with extended family available to attend after-hours but pay normal aquarium entry rates. We had invited my dad and brother, and they were going to come with us – now it was a matter of their entry fee.

Mrs. HokieJayBee and I had made the calls and searched the websites and read the flyer and we were hitting that near-fight a couple hits in frustration at something else. Just frustrated at the whole thing and the incongruence between the aquarium’s information sources, we’re both trying to just get a straight answer. We basically hit the point that we’re bringing my dad and brother, and they’ll probably have to pay their own way in. We decide she’s going to send me the flyer on e-mail and I’ll print it and we’ll bring it so that we’ll at least have one form of proof as to what the aquarium rules were for that night.

And when she sent it to me on e-mail, it was attached, and her note in the e-mail said: “Here it is…”

Note the three .’s.

What she meant by the … “I am so done talking about this, I’m frustrated we can’t get a straight answer from the aquarium, so here’s the flyer, print it for us tonight, we’ll take your dad and brother, see you soon, love you.”

What I read in the … “Hey fucktard, here’s the flyer. See how it says immediate family free and others can come but have to pay. Why are we still talking about this? Why are you fighting me on this? Why do you hate me? Why are you such a jerk? I hate you. You’re a stupid idiotic fool and I regret ever meeting you. I’d rather poke myself in the eye with someone else’s trimmed toe nails than go to the aquarium tonight with you. Die in a fire.”

So I commenced to then start a real fight back at her on e-mail over the … and what she meant by it and why is she so mean and why does she hate me and do I look fat in these pants.

High estrogen levels.

*Got Me. Again.*
We have a decently fancy phone system where I work. I mean, I’m techno enough to be ok on computers and like with the home theatre system. But I don’t know anything about telecommunications. We’ve got these decently fancy Nortel Networks phones at work, and they’re hooked in through the computers and such. Never had a problem with them. Except, the clock displayed on the big screen on the phone is off. It’s been off for a long time. And it’s not off like an even amount like there’s a daylight-savings-time thing.

They’re off by an hour and 17 minutes. Yeah. All day every day, they’re off by an hour…….. and 17 minutes. WTF? I say, “Got me. Again.” because the phone clock gets me like 5 times a day, every day.

“Sweet! Lunchtime!”……”Damn, nevermind, only 10:45.”

“Sweet! Time to head out!”….”Damn, nevermind, only 3:30.”

*Speaking of Clocks Being Off.*
Am I behind the times? Or really far ahead? Someone catch me up. Am I really really really behind the times? Or am I so far ahead of the times I never caught up to fall behind? Am I so late to the scene to make fun that I’ll seem late for still even talking about it, even if it’s negatively?

What the hell is the fascination and how the hell is “The Jersey Shore” popular? Seriously people.

Ok. So the reason I even bring it up is I got an e-mail from a friend I really respect. (i.e. wouldn’t expect them to send me a “Jersey Shore” related e-mail) I googled the application that is becoming popular as the “Jersey Shore Nickname Generator”. Yes I did.

Put in my name. If I were a steroid filled, fake tanned, hair gelled idiot on MTV right now, I’d be “Juice Box”. I put in my middle name the second time, since I technically go by my middle name, and I’d like to introduce you to “Juice Springsteen”. Hell yeah.

*Catch and Release, or Keeper.*
In last week’s cornucopia post I alluded to things being hectic at work lately, with more to come. I’ve decided to limit the novel to a few simple lines. I worked for Company DDD. Company DDD was owned by Company BBB. For reasons they haven’t even totally told us, there were some super secret squirrel meetings and Company DDD had to go away – quick fast and in a hurry. So Company BBB sold Company DDD to Company AAA. Company AAA is also under Company BBB. So now I work for Company AAA, still under Company BBB. Same desk, same job, same clients. Different letterhead. Get it? Neither do I.

Anyways, in the weeks leading up to all this, needless to say, it’s been quite stressful around here. There were some layoffs. There were some people leaving. No one had a guaranteed seat at Company AAA. And frankly, if the lawyers and all the super secret squirrel stuff didn’t go down straight, all of us were out of a job. It was a very stressful time.
Two days before the acquisition, my Manager came up to me and needed me to come by his office, he needed to talk to me. Crap, really? Called to the principal’s office? I’m not going to be retained? Dammit all to hell.

So I stroll down to his office. He shuts the door. He proceeds to ask me which new logo I like best for our new Company AAA.
“I’m a KEEPER!!!!!” I got to voice my input on the new logo!!!!!1one11oneone1!!shiftone!11!!1111!

I think I moonwalked back to my office.

This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse, and Other Useless Ramblings, Again

2010-02-10T15:34:00.003-05:00

I guess I’ll open with the standard blogger bit, “sorry I haven’t been posting as much lately, I’ve been busy, I’m tired, I’m sick, I’m sick and tired, I’ve been traveling, a ferret broke my computer, zombies came from Montana to Virginia and ate my brains, etc.” The truth of the matter is twofold, regarding my lack of posting. First, I admit, I do a lot of my post-writing, or at least rough drafts of posts, at work. Shhhhhh. No really, I take breaks occasionally and spew thoughts down onto (virtual) paper when I can. Well, heaven forbid, a little secret, I’ve been busy at work lately. And it’s been hectic here at work recently on a few other levels – more on that in a near future post. Needless to say, my normal creative time has been spurned by actually having to work, at work. Jeez.

Secondary to that, with creative time limited to where I can’t even work out outlines and drafts, let alone full posts when they come to me, is that I’m my own biggest critic. I’ve tossed away about 50 rough drafts lately of stuff I deemed unworthy of posting. You know, since so many literature critics and publisher editors read my blog…… But what I mean is that, not only has my time available for the verbal diarrhea that I call BorderlineTMI been limited, I’ve been harsh on the work and scrapping it before posting. I don’t know which is the chicken or the egg here.

Low time to post = work I’m not satisfied with so I don’t post it?

I’m overly critical of my own work = so I don’t *really* get into the writing unless I’m pretty sure it’s going to be bombtastic = so I don’t finish it properly, or I just slough off a writing opportunity because I’m worried that the low time to post will result in a work I’m not satisfied with so it won’t be posted?

All of which defeats the purpose of a blog that is admittedly about nothing, other than clearing my head of the demons disguised as useless ramblings of thoughts. Or simply mental weight loss. The more I write this stuff out to you (all), the lighter my head is because I don’t have to think about it anymore. And I can spend more time thinking about important things like bacon, bacon on sandwiches, and why can’t I remember Ben Affleck’s character’s name in Dazed and Confused. Man he was a dick. Wait, he played a dick character in Mall Rats too. Mr. Jennifer Garner totally got his start in movies playing assholes!

/channeling my inner-Asian-drive-thru-worker-from-Dude-Where’s-My-Car/

And then…..

And then….. I totally also remembered it’s been approved by blog admin for me to do cornucopia smorgasbord posts. Instead of writing at length on one useless subject in my own twisted ways, I can write on a British metric shit ton of subjects in my own twisted ways. Or like 10 things. British metric shit tons are a lot. 10 is probably more like it. Maybe I’ll do like 5 things, in shorter bursts, once or twice a week, and try and be better about larger topic posts. Yeah, we’ll try that.

Without further ado……another smorgasbord post. (Look I used that properly! Without further adieu. Without further, a doo. Temerity Jane would be proud.)

Ok, I don’t know if you could tell, but there was like a 5 minute pause between when I typed the last sentence to when I’m typing this now. I had to go for a walk. I totally had one of those OMGWTFBBQ moments and just needed to let my brain take it all in and not freak out. Weird shit happens sometimes, and it frankly weirds me out. And now I’m pissed for today that I didn’t use up my weird cosmic psychic points on a lottery ticket – but rather on this post. See, in the previous line, I linked to a Temerity Jane post where she basically lists all her language and verbiage pet peeves – one of which I remembered as “without further ado”. (if you’re not reading her blog, you should be, at least for her monthly cliff-notes version of Cosmo.) (I just lost man-points didn’t I?)

So I went to her blog to search for the subject post, so I could link to it here. And she’s got some ads on her site. No biggie. And freak-out time….one of today’s ads features one Mrs. Ben Affleck. Yeah, Jennifer Garner. Yeah. So earlier I blabber about bacon and Ben Affleck above? I mean, like why did my brain choose him today as my outlet for randomness? Then I try and be funny and call him “Mr. Jennifer Garner”. Then seconds later I link to Temerity Jane’s page to find Jennifer staring at me? This was all just too much to handle. So I took a walk.
And now I’m back. So really, without further ado.

*This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse*
I’m sure most of you know, from real life or just reading on here, that recently Mrs. HokieJayBee and I got a brand new 50” plasma. It’s nice. Real nice. And we totally shouldn’t have purchased it. Because less than 7 days after installing it. Our second zone AC/heat unit went out at the house. A new $4500 unit later, it’s less lunches out with the work crew to try and save some pennies. Which means more lunches brought from home. Which means more leftovers and more microwaveable crap. So I recently brought some Hot Pockets. Blech, I know. And I totally stole them from Mrs. HokieJayBee’s stash, so they were Lean Pockets. Double blech. And all I have to say about them, is, yeah, they were FRIGGIN AMAZING. They were Lean Pockets Garlic Chicken White Pizza. And they were two breaded lunch pockets of pure win. Yeah, I said it.

*Life’s Little Victories*
Same day last week when I brought the Lean Pockets of Euphoric Bliss, it was totally a double whammy good lunch. You know that feeling when you’re finishing a meal, and you’re like, “man, I wish I had one more little thing. Like, not another entire side dish. But, just one more little tasty morsel of something.” And you’ve eaten your double pack of Lean Pockets, and you’ve eaten your yogurt, and your granola bar? And you’re just craving one more bite of something to finish it all off? And you stand up to go to the vending machine to get one more little snack? And you’re cleaning off your desk from the lunch trash you just made? And you feel a lump of something solid still in your lunch bag when you go to move it? And you reach in and totally find a single brownie in a zip-loc bag? And you do the, man-I-thought-my-lunch-was-gone-and-I-was-going-to-get-a-snack-from-the-vending-machine-but-found-a-brownie-DANCE?

I just realized as I scan my sticky-notes-of-blog-ideas that I have a good amount of food/lunch based ones. Authorized title change: This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse, and Other Useless Ramblings – The Work Lunch Edition

*When Did They Change Bananas?*
Yeah, I mean when did the fruit and vegetable scientists change bananas? I had a banana with my lunch the other day, and it tasted normal, it was a fine banana. But it was totally different. One reason I never really took to bananas growing up, was the fact that I’m a texture/consistency guy. And those godforsaken stringy lines that you have to peel off the banana, after already peeling the peel off the banana – just flat gross me out. So, I shied away from bananas for pretty much my whole life. The look and feel of those stringy things on bananas just makes me vomititious. And this lunch banana I had the other day, didn’t have ANY of the weirdo vein strings. NONE. When did they change bananas? And why wasn’t I notified so that I could start enjoying such a lovely fruit again, earlier in my life?

*Wait, They’re Called What?*
So the other day in my office’s kitchen, someone left out snack food on the sharing table. You know, the one table in your office that everyone leaves fair game food? Whether it be something they just brought too much of, or on purpose to put on the sharing table, like chips and salsa. Well, the other day, this free-for-all snack was a Brittish/Scottish cracker/cookie packet of “Digestives”. Yeah, digestives? I totally had to google it to find out they’re not some sort of old-people-fiber-Ensure-fake-dessert-keep-your-shit-firm-kind of thing. Apparently they’re just the British equivalent of a coffee/tea dunking cookie/cracker, or even a simple graham cracker to us hillbilly ‘mericans. I’m thinking someone lost a job over the naming of the cookies when they noticed horrible horrible horrible sales here in the states.

Boss: “Winston, ol’ chap, get in here.”
Winston: “Right O.”
Boss: “Why are our North American sales so bloody low this quarter?”
Winston: “I haven’t the foggiest. We can’t seem to sell our Stomach Assimilation Cookies or our Intestinal Track Swiffers.”

*I Hate the Pepsi Guy*
I guess we’ll stay with the work kitchen thing we’ve got going today. So, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, there’s vending machines in our work kitchen. One food, one drink. Our drink machine is a Pepsi product based machine. No biggie. I’m not some whacked out Coke head that I won’t drink Pepsi products. Actually, come to think of it, other than the main product Coke>Pepsi itself, I prefer Pepsi products over their Coke counterparts (Mt. Dew, Dr. Pepper, etc.). Anyways, the reason I’m talking about this here is because our Pepsi machine delivery guy is a total dickjob. You see, he doesn’t do inventory control by buying and stocking less of his lower sellers (i.e Diet Caffiene Free Pepsi), and subsequently buying and stocking more of his higher sellers (i.e. Mt. Dew or regular Pepsi). He does inventory control by putting the low sellers at the front of lines of the popular rows. Want a Mt. Dew? Have to wait for someone to buy that Diet Caffeine Free Strawberry Pepsi first, which has been strategically placed in front of the Mt. Dew rows. Or buy it yourself and pour it down the drain, and then buy your Mt. Dew.

This is level one dickheadedness. Total level two asshattery happened to me the other day. I head to the machine to grab a soda. “Hey! Nothing is blocking the Mt. Dew row! Sweet!” So I buy the soda. Get the bottle from the machine. Head back to my desk. Crack it for the first drink. Spit the goat urine out all over my office floor. Upon inspection, totally got had with a Diet Mt. Dew. Dammit! It should be noted that a diet Mt. Dew, in the same green bottle, turned around facing away from you in a vending machine, looks *exactly* like a real Mt. Dew. I didn’t realize vending machine-ism was such a maniacal malicious game. Does this mean I can pay him with slightly less valuable coinage that looks just like real money? Like Canadian quarters instead?

Things That Might Only Amuse Me – Other People’s Bad Luck

2010-01-20T14:59:00.003-05:00

So this past weekend, me and Mrs. HokieJayBee had some bad luck of our own. We learned that our second AC/heating zone at the back of the house downstairs had lost its ability to supply the house with comfortable air. Yeah, the combo AC/gas heat unit crapped out. The house was built in 1990, we bought it in 2004, but according to the manufacture date on the broken heat pump, it was installed in ~1993. So ~17 years of use out of a mechanical piece of equipment with electricity and natural gas running through it, that sits outside in the elements, I guess I can’t complain.

$4500 later, we have a new heat pump for our house’s second AC/heating zone. Now that’s bad luck? The sinking feeling you have inside when you realize something that’s very expensive that you own needs to be replaced. But it’s not bad luck in the manner of, getting ~17 years out of a piece of household equipment that’s designed to work for 12-25 years, depending on who you ask. Like, any day after ~12 years is a blessing right? So we had 5 years of good luck before the inevitable happened.

We didn’t have bad luck that it broke; it’s a necessity for the house. Bad luck would be if the new unit breaks 731 days from now. That’s 2 years + 1 day for those keeping score at home. I’m not even going to offer you a prize for guessing how long the full warranty is on the new unit. Not only is it not bad luck that this unit had to be replaced, it’s definitely not funny bad luck. Like the kind where something funny happens to someone you know, and they have bad luck that it happened and you point and laugh at them and their bad luck. No one I know is pointing at me for my bad AC/heat luck.

An example of funny bad luck? Like the guy from my old office who got shit on by a seagull, TWICE in two days on a group camping/beach weekend. If by some stroke of pure randomness it was the same bird, now we’re talking super-mega-mondo-funny. I can only assume it was a different bird, but either way, we pointed, we laughed.

An example of not funny bad luck? Same trip, different guy, lost his keys at the beach. No pointing, no laughing. Dude couldn’t drive home.

Anyone else I’ve recently laughed at their bad luck? Well, see, I’m a Washington Redskin fan. My Redskins suck. We couldn’t sniff the playoffs this year, or any others recently. But it hasn’t been all bad, because our bitter rival, the Dallas Cowboys haven’t had any playoff luck in the last 13 years either. In fact, until this year, they hadn’t even won a game in December or later for like 5 years. Even without division titles during that 13 year span, the Redskins at least managed to win a playoff game or two.

So, my Redskins have sucked hind tit for a while, but we had company in our misery, in the form of our bitter rival equally sucking late in the season(s).

Then this year happened. The #$@@#$&ing Cowboys won a December game. They beat the previously undefeated world beater New Orleans Saints. Then they won another December game. Then another. Then they won the NFC East Division. Then they got to host a home playoff game. Then they won that game.

Crap, America’s Team was back. They were hot. Their fans were up in arms. The media was getting on the train. The Cowboys were going to win it all! They’re the greatest thing since sliced bread!

On two separate trips by two different Cowboy fans in my office (note I work in VA), they attended the new Cowboy stadium in Dallas for games. They relished in the success of the Cowboys and the awesomeness of the new stadium.

This past weekend, the Cowboys had to travel to Minnesota to play the Vikings to advance in the playoffs. Although the bookmakers in Vegas had the Vikings as a slight favorite, most of America, to include all the major football media figures, had chosen the Cowboys to stay hot and win at Minnesota.

Then (thank God!), Brett Favre and the Vikings stomped a mudhole in the Cowgirls. Good, having to endure another week of hearing the media and Cowboy fans jibber jabber would have driven me to drink (more). The Vikings stomped them, 34-3, and even got a late touchdown passing when they could have simply run out the clock. Some of the Cowboys cried and complained that the big meanie Vikings were big meanies and didn’t have to score anymore. (I’m cackling as I type this, seriously crying in the NFL? If you don’t want them to score on you anymore Mr. Brooking, you and your 10 defensive teammates should have stopped them from scoring any of the 34 points you gave up. But I digress.)

As you can see, this story has turned into a good story to be a Redskin fan.

Then, we all come into work Monday morning. It rained where I live this past weekend. This is the post-rain-collapsed-ceiling above one of my co-worker’s desk. Guess what her favorite NFL team is?

Literal humor, raining on someone’s parade?
Is it wrong that this amuses me?

This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse, and Other Useless Ramblings

2010-01-18T17:00:00.003-05:00

I realize I had a couple-month spat there where I was pretty much only posting the NFL newsletter (or link thereof) and the occasional post. It wasn’t a matter of nothing to write about, but more of a time issue. Having to work, at work? Gasp! Shut up Brain. I meant a time issue in multiple dimensions. Like a double entendre? Yeah, but with two meanings. You’re dumb. Yep.

I wasn’t only not posting because I didn’t have time to write any novellas. It went the other direction too. You see, I was only trying to post when I had some big huge ginormo idea. I didn’t want to post little posts or waste any of the reader(s) time. I would only post when I had something I felt was big enough in both content, and length, to post. So I was trapped to not write short entries because there wouldn’t be as good as long entries, which I didn’t have time to write.

Which is stupid. It’s my little meaningless blog. Who cares if I post a one-liner on a theme-less little itty bitty nitty gritty titty committee blog like this? You see, there’s a constant nature to the crap running through my head. It’s a testament to my memory at all that I can get anything on paper to post to you reader(s). Did you tell them about the Post-It Notes on your desk? You just did. Yeah, I have random little “this could be a blog post one day” yellow stickies all over the damn place.

I’ve got all this crap to write about, none of which deserving of an entire post…….So, in a pallet cleansing effort, how about a smorgasbord post? Enjoy.

*This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse*
The family and I hit up our local grocery last night. And I saw it. The epitome of American laziness. Because having to pour the milk, then squeeze the chocolate syrup, and *then* stir it too? Too much. When you can let some AA batteries do the work for you. Seriously, they have these near the dessert stuff at my neighborhood’s grocery. Yeah, because stirring chocolate milk is for losers.

*This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse, Part Deux*
So I go to ye ol’ Google site to try and search for an image to use above for the auto-choco-stirrer. And I find this site, http://www.chow.com/stories/10184, and someone has written an entire article on other totally useless food-related-kitchen items. Holy crap. What is wrong with you people? I know some of you just ordered the mini-bagel-gloves. I’m ashamed. I also have to admit I never thought I’d be typing the words, mini-bagel-gloves together.

*Life’s Little Victories, FIRST!*
The sad sad state of a life I live? Heading to the work potty mid-morning, to find the light off, and everything still smelling fresh of the cleaning from the night before. Yes! I am the first ass to sit on this seat today! It’s still clean from last night! Totally don’t even have to wipe off the seat! I can just undo the 17 things at the top of my dress pants and sit! Victory. It doesn’t take long to lose this little feeling of victory as the first sitter though, my work’s toilets are filled with cold, deep water.

*Ok, I’m Lazy, But Not Won’t-Stir-My-Own-Chocolate-Milk-Lazy.*
I realized recently, typing an e-mail for work, that I haven’t hit Shift-I in probably 10 years. Damn you Bill Gates! Damn you to hell with your auto-correct. You have ruined me with your functions that automatically capitalize all my I’s when they need to be! You know you had to hit Shift-I to type this…..Shut Up! They get my point.

*Did He Just Say……*
The VP at my office that I report to is a good guy. He’s a smart guy, a good worker, and generally knows his shit. He’s not my direct manager (don’t really have one in my company’s structure), but oversees many projects here, including mine. I don’t really care to know where he went to school, or how many degrees he has, or anything quantitative like that – but I can safely say he’s an educated man and is a good VP. But he says some stupid shit sometimes. He’s got some sayings he uses at meetings, all the time:
- Vendor proposal, sent in. Reviewed by me or my engineers. Sent back to vendor. Vendor has questions or a new submittal, or even clarifications on the original submittal. “I need you guys to re-review it.” Re-review? Huh?
- Possible new job site information coming in. Maybe haven’t gotten any new information from the prospective client recently. “Any new news from ClientXX?” New news? What?
- Discussing an engineering firm we farm work out to, they are good at two-dimensional CAD work, but not at three-dimensional modeling. “We’re not going to use FirmXX for the isometrics. What they do do well is the P&ID’s.” They do do well? Gross.

*Products You Might Have Forgotten About*
Recently at the grocery store, it was soda-for-work buying time. And I’ll be damned if the Pepsi products weren’t $5.69 for a 12-pack (I’m a Mt. Dew guy). Ouch. So when that happens, I’ll settle for the Coke products (I can handle Mr. Pibb). Crap, they’re $5.69 too. What the hell is going on? I’ve never been a coffee drinker, and my office doesn’t have any fancy flavored stuff, can’t start now. I guess I’ll put up with the grocery store generic this time. You know, the “Mountain Lion!” or the “Dr. Perky!” stuff. Wait, what, $5.69 too?!?!? What the hell is going on?

Oh there’s one, $3.79. I’ll get a 12-pack of that. Cool. Royal Crown Cola. Yeah, RC Cola. Didn’t even know they still made it. I’ll gladly be the first to tell you there’s a reason it was cheaper than the generic, and why perhaps I had thought (hoped?) they stopped manufacturing it. Goat piss. Perhaps they *did* stop bottling it and my local grocery store put out some 12-packs they found laying around in the back. Goat piss.

*Movies You Might Have Forgotten About*
So lil HokieJayBee got a Wii for Christmas, and subsequently Daddy HokieJayBee got a new 50” plasma to plug lil HokieJayBee’s Wii into. You’re treading a line of innuendo there, Jay. Shhhh, not that Wii. So anyways, in purchasing the new 50” TV, we chose to sell our old 34” Flat Screen Tube TV on Craig’sList rather than carry it upstairs to be our bedroom TV. It’s 177 pounds and I just wanted it out of the house. Yeah, 177 pounds of TV. I hooked it up to a old DVD player in the front room so that I could demonstrate that the TV is fine to the potential customers that came to take a look at it. I grabbed the top DVD off one of the shelves in the tower to demonstrate the TV. What did I grab? The Matrix. Matrix 1, not that sequel 2 or 3 crap they put out. I hooked it up and started it up to make sure it worked so that I could demonstrate the TV when customers arrived. 45 minutes later Mrs. HokieJayBee wanted to know what was taking me so long to set up the TV………….

Really? You think about stuff like that?

2010-01-14T14:41:00.000-05:00

Borderline TMI would like to take the next couple minutes of your day, and possibly gross you out. I know that I could probably go on a Googling binge and figure this out myself. Wait, Googling? I’ll take made-up-words for a thousand, Tribeck. But that wouldn’t be any fun. Not when I can post it here for you reader(s) and maybe gross you out, or maybe make you say, “oh that’s gross, I can’t believe you think about stuff like……..hey wait, where does it go?”

Or even for the simple pleasure of letting you all see more into exactly what is going on up here. You didn’t actually point at your head when you typed that, did you? Mayyyyyybe.

So, anyways…….a quick back story. Mrs. HokieJayBee is a teacher, at a public elementary school. Lil HokieJayBee, our 2 and half year old bundle of energy, attends a sitter’s house with four other children. These two variables add up to one simple constant situation. I’m always sick. Like, not sick-sick, not strep or bronchitis or anything serious, but just a constant daily life that includes congestion and full sinuses and a runny nose. More of an annoyance than a sickness. But from the months of October to February every year, I’m just near-kind-of-almost-congested sick. Neither of them get sick, or even hover around the near-kind-of-almost-congested sick like I do. I call them carriers. They have built up immunities to this constant congestion stuff and are just drone sponges that bring it home to me for the winter. Yeah science!

Side note: my biological father, my grandfather, and one of my uncles on that side have all had sinus re-opening, cleaning, widening surgery. Perhaps I could find a parallel here between that and the elementary school/daycare germs that I live with, and a lessened immune system for the winter months……but that’s not the point of this piece.

The point of the piece is that I live with a constant state of congestion all winter. Every winter. I’m used to it I guess. Now, without any Googling, I want to know where it goes.

I mean, I have a little constant sniffle and lately a lot of phlegm build up in my throat. At work all day, or even at home, one doesn’t realistically blow one’s nose on a constant basis, or cough and hack up the phlegm for a good loogie out the back door. It’s just not feasible for a person who lives in a constant state of kind-of-almost-nearly-congested sick, like I do. So, inevitably, one swallows it.

Wow, Jay. Deep stuff there. I guess problem solved? Shut up brain, you know what I mean; you help (hinder?) me with these kinds of thoughts all day.

What I mean is, where does it go?
Does the body digest it? Is it processed as pure waste to excrement?
Does the body process it? Like for re-use? It is after all a bodily product already. So some of it might be able to be used again. For the same function?
Maybe the body pulls the waste/anti-bodies out of the base mucus product and sends that to waste and processes the mucus for re-use?

I know it’s gross, but really, what happens to it?

Wait. What? (My bank is retarded edition)

2010-01-11T16:20:00.003-05:00

I didn’t want to make a formal “Things That Bug Me” post on today’s topic, because in general I am very very very pleased. But after an episode this morning, I have to at least post something.

So, I’d like to talk about my bank. Doesn’t matter what the name of my bank is, I’m sure you’ve all dealt with a situation of your bank being challenged, regardless of where you handle your finances. The reason I’m not putting my bank on the list of things that bug me, is because they generally don’t. Today’s occurrences were either the work of one idiot person, or one idiot policy [which I guess is from one idiot person who ok’d it]. But either way, hilarity.

Background story: Ok, Mrs. HokieJayBee and I have a son. He’s 2 and a half now. We managed to do something right for a change, something mature and proper, and we started him an ESA when he was like 6 months old. [Education Savings Account] We put a monthly stipend into the account for him and hopefully it will grow to help us pay for his college in 16 years. It’s not a lot, but with 18 years to work with the interest compiling, we hope we’ll be ok. We ask relatives to chip in when they can, like on his birthday and Christmas. It’s all turning out to be a pretty boring story thus far.

The current story started this weekend, where I got a letter from our bank. It seems to be a standard form print letter, not written just for our case – but it’s still pretty threatening and ridiculously harsh. The basis is this. The ESA we have for lil’ HokieJayBee is essentially, at least to the banking world and the IRS, a modified IRA account. Which has special tax laws, or lack of taxes due, on the earned dividends in a formal ESA account. The letter is essentially stating that we are in default of an IRA account and owe 28% taxes and a possible $5,000 fine if we don’t properly file the account holder’s Social Security Number and/or Tax ID to the IRS and claim these dividends properly. Do what?

First sign for me that someone is not doing their due diligence to research what the hell they’re talking about in these threatening letters, it opened with:

“Dear [my son’s name]; [BANK NAME X] has made several attempts to contact you, the account holder, in regards to a missing Social Security Number/Tax Identification Number (SSN/TIN) associated with your IRA/ESA account #XXXXXXXXXX. Without this information…..”. So, first, I ask. Please define “several attempts to contact the account holder”.

He’s……………2. Did you try and call him? Did you call his cell phone or his work phone? I know he sometimes turns his cell off at the sitter’s as to not disturb the other children during nap time. And if you left him a voice mail, he is horrible at checking those. I’m always emptying his voice mail box for him. And after he ran up a large bill recently, we cut off his texting privileges, so if you tried to reach him that way, it might not have gone through. ……….Several attempts to contact the account holder……..my 2 year old son.

So, even if you want to defend the letter, and they meant me, the parent as the account holder, I can say that no they haven’t tried once to contact us regarding the IRA/ESA account, or his SSN. And, and, and…..we started this account at the end of 2007. And there would have already been two tax year events (January 1, 2008 and January 1, 2009) which would have required his “missing” SSN. So last year and back into 2007 and 2008, everything was fine with the account and the SSN and the IRS. Only now, the third year we’re hitting a tax year event (January 1, 2010) is there a problem?

Now normally I guess I’d just call the bank and try and politely decipher the problem with them. But this letter was all but rude. It’s very threatening and negative, and frankly I wasn’t in the mood to be spoken to in this manner or threatened over an issue at which I am not at fault. Especially the part about the fine being for a FELONY for perjury for avoiding/lying/misleading the IRS in regards to withholdings of dividends for my son’s account.

How am I so sure I am not at fault? Other than the vault of a near-photographic memory I am lucky enough to possess?

Because when he was about 6 months old, near the end of 2007…………is when I had to go get his SSN set up and get his SSN card,…………….SO THAT WE COULD OPEN THIS ACCOUNT. Because you can’t open the kind of IRA/ESA we did,………………WITHOUT A SSN OR TIN. Yeah. That’s why I was a little put off by the tone of this letter. Humor notes aside about them making several attempts to contact my 2 year old son.

So. To open this account, we had to get his SSN and card, or we couldn’t open the account. We filled out all forms and paperwork in a branch, in person. We survived two tax year events already without incident. And now suddenly there’s an issue with his SSN, his account, the withholdings, the IRS, and now threats of fines and felonies?

Ok, let’s duel. Standard letter mailing or not – you don’t just mail crap like this to your members without researching the problem.

So I call the bank this morning. Surprisingly only on hold for like 3 minutes after navigating the fancy menu, and I even got straight to the correct department. Hooray me, pressing 1 for English!

I get a very polite young lady, entirely too chipper for a Monday morning, and politely apologize in advance for my tone and demeanor, but I’m unimpressed with the handling of the issue thus far and frankly a little angry at the tone and threats in the letter. You all can imagine the next 5 minutes of the call as I explain to her everything I did for you above, about them ‘trying to contact’ my 2 year old, about how we already successfully navigated two January 1's without issue, about how I couldn’t start the account without the SSN, etc.

After some wrangling, she put me on hold to discuss the situation with her supervisor and came back with some lame excuse about department A not talking to department B within the bank and department B reports to the IRS and needed to get the information from department A and they must not have it from me and I need to go into a branch with my son (they need to visually confirm his existence?!?!?!?!?!) and fill out the paperwork to start an IRA/ESA, and then department A will forward it to department B and department B will forward to the IRS and I “shouldn’t” (her words) have a problem or be fined, and all future dividend earnings will not be withheld like the previous ones were being withheld.

Wait. What? Back up ma’am.
[1] Your two internal departments can’t talk properly, so that’s why I got a threatening letter and such?
[2] I have to go to a branch and bring my son to prove I have a minor so that I can open an account like this?
[3] I have to fill out the paperwork AGAIN to "start" an IRA/ESA?
[4] I “SHOULDN’T” have a problem or be fined????
[5] And all FUTURE dividend earnings will not be withheld like the previous ones were? You’ve been withholding my son’s account’s dividend earnings?

“Well yes sir, since your son’s account did not have proper SSN/TIN identification to be qualified for the tax-free IRA/ESA rules.”

“Yes it did.”

“No it didn’t, or you wouldn’t have gotten this letter.”

“Ma’am. Please define for me the process with which was required for me to start this account for my son.”

“Well, as I described for you now, you would have had to go to a branch in person, with your son, and present his SSN/TID card, and make an initial deposit.”

“So I couldn’t have started this account for my son had I not completed that task?”

[long pause]
[like, I didn’t talk. I was letting it settle in.]
[at this point I think I literally saw the lightbulb come on through the phone.]

“One second sir, let me speak with my supervisor again.”

[3 minutes]

“Please destroy the letter sir. We will notify the IRS of the situation and correctly file your son’s SSN with them for 2009 and all future year’s dividends. We will rectify any previously withheld taxes on the dividends earned and you will not be subjected to any future withholdings. You are also not at risk for any fines or felony charges. I do apologize for any inconvenience. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

[click]

One Step Further

2010-01-08T15:37:00.002-05:00

Welcome back me. Long break over Christmas for me, lazy no bloggy time. But I'm back.

So I’ve already detailed for you in a previous post, the guy we’ve all worked with, the talk-in-a-circle-in-work-speak-phrases-guy. The guy who doesn’t do anything, or produce anything of actual value for your company – but sure can talk a huge nice game, and it sounds like he’s busy at something.

Today I wanted to detail for you another guy that I work with, and maybe you can relate.

I like to call this guy the one-step-too-far-guy. He can take any situation – work related, personal related, no matter who is in the conversation – and essentially ruin it. He takes jokes too far, he takes criticism too far, and basically just creates a multitude of awkward situations for everyone involved. I admit that I find it funny a lot of the time, just watching people react to him, and the looks he gets when he exits, if for the sake of justice or the oh-my-God-there-is-a-God-he-finally-left faces people make behind his back.

This kind of individual is similar to a one-upper-guy. I know you all know a one-upper-guy. He has something to interject into any story anyone is telling. He’s done it better, longer, harder, stronger, faster – than you. Or he knows someone who has. He basically has a one-up, or more knowledge about any subject, than you. And he’s not afraid to tell you about it.

Example of a common One-Upper-Guy:
(for those scoring at home, this is a made up example)

Me: “Me and the family headed to [CITY X] for Christmas this year. Traffic wasn’t bad at all, we made it in like 4 hours. Which was good with the pups and our 2-year-old.”
One-Upper-Guy: “Pfft, I’ve made that drive in 3 hours.”
Me: [long awkward pause] “grats?”

So, the one-step-too-far-guy is similar to the one-upper-guy, only a lot of times his one-upping is just…….one……..step………too……….far. Sometimes he says things in situations that we we're all thinking, but due to the situation or people involved, would never dream of saying. Sometimes he just flat out says some whack ass shit.

Examples:
(all accounts are paraphrased for brevity and the names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
(yes, these are all accounts I’ve witnessed or been a part of the conversation, none of this is made up.)
(I swear.)

---“Keep Your Day Job.”---
Setting: Big Conference Room, many big important people.
Big Boss Man X: [during a work speech tries to break the ice with a joke, a not funny joke]
Employees: [laugh, forced]
Big Boss Man Y: [who has the authority and company standing, as well as personal friendship, to say this to Big Boss Man X] “Ha, better keep your day job [Big Boss Man X].”
One-Step-Too-Far-Guy: “Yeah, because that wasn’t funny. You’re not funny. You should never be a stand-up comedian.”

So, you see now what I mean with the creature I describe as the one-step-too-far-guy. Good.

---“You look tired.”---
Setting: Employee D’s office, random work morning.
D: “Man, I am beat.”
Me: “No sleep last night?”
D: “Yeah, I was up way too late night watching [TV SHOW X/SPORTING EVENT Q].”
One-Step-Too-Far-Guy: “Yeah, when you’re tired, you look old too. You look like crap today. No offense.”

---“I’d hit it.”---
Setting: Employee G’s office, random work day. Employee G is female.
G: “I cannot stand my hair. I need another cut but I need the bangs to grow out first. Uggh, I hate it.”
Other female employee in conversation: “Awww, it looks fine. It looks really good when you straighten it and wear it layered rather than pulled back.”
One-Step-Too-Far-Guy: [walking by the office, like not even really in the conversation] “Pssssssh, you’re still hot. I’d hit it.”

---“You know she’s 16 right?”---
Setting: Group conversation, office kitchen. Attractive young [young!] girl walks by.
D: “Whoa, who was that?”
Me: “Watch yourself, I think that’s [Employee L]’s daughter.”
D: “Whoops, I think you’re right. She’s like 16 isn’t she?”
Employee L enters the room, now in conversation.
D: “Hey L, your daughter here?”
L: “Yeah, brought me my lunch, she just got her license.”
One-Step-Too-Far-Guy: “Driving? Alright, so she *is* 16. Only two more years and I can make my move, she’s so hot.”

And my personal favorite….

---“It’s pronounced Muh soose.”---
Setting: Group conversation, office kitchen. Males and females in conversation. Employee A rubbing his neck, grimacing.
D: “Morning A, what’s wrong?”
A: “Hurt my neck playing basketball last night.”
D: “Like pulled a muscle, or need a doctor? Or just need to get a professional massage?”
Me: “I’ve gotten one before. Worth it.”
A: “Nah, too expensive. I’ll just rest it a week.”
One-Step-Too-Far-Guy: “Too expensive? I love getting professional massages. Only I call ‘em Rub and Tugs!”

[awkward pause, whole group]

One-Step-Too-Far-Guy: “What, who doesn’t want a happy ending?”

One.
Step.
Too.
Far.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 16

2009-12-22T16:53:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a great holiday season. Be safe and probably won't see you until next year.

In the mean time, here's my weekly NFL newsletter for week 16.
Click here to jump over to BeerControlOffense.

Later!

Um, Yes You Are.

2009-12-18T11:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I don’t necessarily always go too far to or past the borderline of TMI, and I’m not always treading the line of decency and offensiveness. I try to be a good boy, and not even necessarily post everything that comes to my wicked nutty brain. Thank God. Shut up brain.

But I’ve been thinking lately, why not? I mean, it’s just a personal little blog here. It’s supposed to be funny. So I’ve been thinking lately that I am going to be more willing, when I post, to tread that line a little more. Maybe even push the line farther away and then tread it there. Anyways, in thinking along these lines recently, I couldn’t really find a topic that was a-little-more-offensive-ice-breaking-funny.

Then I went to get my haircut yesterday. Don’t have to tell you where, let’s just say it’s a Super place to get hair Cuts. They give Super hair Cuts. Clever, icwhatudidthar. I’m tricky brain, you should know this.

I’m getting my hair cut by one hair-cutter-lady in one chair. She’s a petite little young girl. Nice enough. Forced dialogue ensues, no big deal. Just trim the back and sides with a 2 guard and do finger length trimming on the top. Thanks, here’s your $14. But I wasn’t listening to her blabber. I was listening to the conversation from the other hair-cutter-lady and her customer in one of the other chairs.

In the most non-rude way possible, yet still trying to get across exactly the magnitude that I’m speaking of, we’ll call the other stylist, BIG. Be nice Jay. No brain, I’m not being rude. I’m just saying, she’s got some size on her. A lot of it. Look, there’s nothing wrong with it. We’re all out of shape here in America. We all should eat less fast food and take more jogs. I’m not lying peacefully here in my glass house here with a sack of rocks. Doesn’t mean this girl isn’t a nice girl, doesn’t mean she can’t cut hair, doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. I’m just being truthful with you here; she could drop a few pounds and still rival Rosanne Barr circa 1993. Just too big. Time to consult a physician. Time to change one’s lifestyle.

I know some of you think I’m a heartless asshole now. Whatever, I don’t hate fat people. There’s just a difference between pleasantly normally overweight people in our society, and the OH MY GOD DON’T FALL ON ME, WHY ARE YOU BREATHING SO HARD people. Hell, according to the stupid charts at my doctor’s office, unless you look like a praying mantis, we’re all “obese” by the true definition of the word. There’s just a time where you need to just make a life change and work to keep yourself healthier so you can live longer and be around your loved ones longer.

But this isn’t a public service announcement, sorry to digress. Anyways, I’m sitting there getting my hair cut, and the other customer and her hair-cutter-lady seem to know each other more than the casual customer-to-hair-cutter way. They’re discussing the stylist’s upcoming wedding in January.

Customer – is it going to be a big wedding?

Jay – durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Thank you for not saying that outloud. Hey, I couldn’t have thought it without you. True, but what kind of question is that to an NFL offensive lineman, “is it going to be a big wedding?”. Well thank you for not making me say *that* outloud. What do you think, center, guard, or tackle? Left Guard. Good call.

Stylist – Yeah. We’re having it at ………[insert a couple minutes of wedding babble, location, # of attendees, where the reception is, blah blah blah]………

Customer – Oh, that’s a nice place to have your reception………..[insert a couple minutes of blabber about receptions and menus and crap]……….

Then it happened.

Customer – So what kind of cake?

Stylist – Oh, I’m not really a cake person.

Jay – Ummmmmmmm. Don’t do it! Quiet! Not out loud!

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 15

2009-12-17T11:42:00.003-05:00

Click here to see this week's HokieJayBee NFL newsletter over at EBJ's BeerControlOffense.

Thanks, and if I don't get to say it next week, have a Great Holiday Season!!!!

Is That The Same Finger?

2009-12-16T15:32:00.005-05:00

I have a ~half hour interstate commute to work every day. Suffice to say, I see a lot of people and a lot of cars on a regular basis. Combine my Sirius Satellite Radio with my liking of the pastime known as “people watching”, and work commutes aren’t always half bad. I also have a little game I play with myself sometimes. Jay, careful….. Not that brain! I don’t call that a “game”. I like to take a person’s car in, make and model, new or old, condition, stickers, driving style, etc. – and try and predict that person’s demographics, gender, ethnicity, age, etc. – based on their car.

One time, when explaining the rules of this self game to Mrs. HokieJayBee so she could try and understand a little of what goes on in this pretty little headpiece of mine, I played the predictor game out loud for her. After I went 12 for my first 12, she made me stop because she was laughing too hard and I was getting cocky. True Story.

Also, it’s not like I set out to play this “game”. It just happens. Huge Ford Truck, Harley Davidson stickers, truck in pristine condition, driving way too slow in the right lane – white male, early fifties, T-shirt or sweatshirt. Ding ding ding. Late model Kia sedan, no stickers, license plate QTBABY or something similar, driving way too fast and recklessly for the current traffic conditions like we’re in their way – young black female, big earrings, chewing gum, on cell phone. Ding ding ding. That’s just how my head works. I subconsciously start into this game all time when driving.

So anyways, I’m driving to work the other morning. Probably too fast, but I’m always 7 minutes late to work. Don’t know how I do it, no matter how my morning goes I’m always 7 minutes late to work. And besides, how else would I verify my game predictions of people if I wasn’t going faster than them to pass them and verify? So I’m driving to work, predicting away.

Brand new Range Rover smaller SUV, pristine condition, sky blue, just washed, driving fine for current conditions in right lane, two college stickers. You know, the kind where you put your alma mater or where your kids go on the back windshield? These two, Yale and Brown. Well highty tighty hoopty boopty for you Ivy Leaguer! Yale *and* Brown? I’m gonna go with 38-45 white female (the husband would have gotten the bigger range rover and would have gotten dark green), turtleneck, too much make-up, costume-y jewelry, talking on phone but on hand’s free set.

Reality: nailed it. 38-45 white female, not a turtleneck, one of those blouse’s with the enormously too big of a collar sticking out of a normal necked sweater, make-up normal, correct on the too big for her head earrings, and correct on the phone, but she was holding it. Holding it with her head leaning right on her right shoulder. Driving with her right hand. Why so much detail in her body placement?

Because her left hand was up at her face and her left pinky was two knuckles deep in her left nostril.

Is that an Ivy League thing? The Pinky? I mean, we all pick. But a full lean over double knuckle pinky shot? And is that the same finger you Ivy Leaguers leave hanging out in mid-air off of your cosmopolitans?

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 14

2009-12-11T14:31:00.003-05:00

I'm back from the Great White North, after spending a week with our Canadian neighbors at a jobsite.

A couple quick thoughts:
[1] Yes, they do talk like *that*.
[2] And for all the talk about us being pansies down here and not liking cold weather, they sure talk about it a lot when it's cold and snows. That's probably more a symptom of flat-out nothing else to talk about than of the cold really bothering them though.
[3] HokieJayBee's NFL week 14 newsletter can be found posted over at BeerControlOffense. <----click here and enjoy.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 13

2009-12-03T16:56:00.003-05:00

So, you didn't even get a warning post about Week 12's picks over at BeerControlOffense. And you haven't had a post in forever.

It's been busy at work [gasp], and there was that whole holiday thing, and blah blah blah blah blah. Excuses, excuses. I'll try to post more, I've been lazy.

Back to normal here with HJB's week 13 NFL newsletter, published over at my boy's BeerControlOffense. <----click here.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 11

2009-11-20T13:48:00.001-05:00

As per usual, go check out my week 11 NFL newsletter over at

-----> Beer Control Offense <-----

Things That Bug Me, Dress Pants

2009-11-19T16:54:00.001-05:00

So this week I turned from early 30’s to early 30’s + 1 more. I had a great birthday. On the weekend, Momma HokieJayBee made me my favorite meal of all time, her meatloaf. Then on my actual birthday night, Mrs. HokieJayBee went and bought steamed crab legs for dinner. Yes. Yes. And Yes. The women in my life are doing pretty well for their respective reputation meters.

Besides that, the Redskins actually won a game for a change, and beat a Bronco team they had no business beating. I thank them for a gift too.

And my Hokies stomped a mud-hole in the Maryland Terriblepins. Not a surprise so I can’t say it was a birthday gift but I’ll take it.

Awesome story Jay. Shut up brain. I’m just setting up a little background and such. Uh huh, dress pants? Ok.

So I got a new pair of dress pants for my birthday too. They were needed, for work and such. So I’m thankful for them. They’re pretty sweet. Ralph Lauren. Charcoal colored. They’re comfy. They look nice.

And, they BUG THE HELL OUT OF ME.

At least, if you’re headed to the bathroom and you, uhhhhhhhh, don’t have a lot of time.

Counting a belt (which you always wear with dress pants), there are five things to undo to be able to drain your lizard or drop your kids off at the pool.

Yes. 5.

Belt. Internal overlap button. Main metal slide. External overlap button. Zipper. 5. Things.

It is not a quick ordeal, if you’re trying to not rip stuff.

So I warn you, should you be the owner of a sweet new pair of dress pants, ensure you leave yourself plenty of undo-device-time when you need to head to the baffruum.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 10

2009-11-13T14:07:00.002-05:00

Week 10's NFL Newsletter is up over at Beer Control Offense.

Go check it out, and have a great weekend!

People I Hate, Volume 1

2009-11-10T14:57:00.001-05:00

So. I hate people. I mean, for a lot of reasons. I truly despise a lot of people. In groups. Careful, careful. Shut up brain, I’m not talking any sweeping prejudices or racism. I’m talking about people. Just the general public. I just hate a large vast majority of people. I don’t care if you’re white or black or green or Chinese or German or Mexican or Catholic or Jewish or whatever. Trashy people are trashy people.

Today’s people I hate: Litterers. From cars specifically.

Seriously? You lazy bastards. Is your car so nice you can’t hold on to that wrapper/cup/box until you get to your next destination? Are you that much better of a person that you can’t be bothered to keep track of your own trash? I’m willing to bet you more money than you have that where you’re driving to has a trash can. You pieces of crap.

And you’re the trash that whine that your government doesn’t do enough for you, aren’t you? You with your amazing 1995 Honda Civic, part red, part rust, one blue quarter panel. You with your tendencies.

Don’t judge me. Judge these pieces of crap.

I guess bases a lot of my angst at a certain level of person in our society based on the actual content of the litter……you can tell a lot about people by their trash?

Most littered material that I see:
7-11 hot dog boxes. Quality meal in a rush. Add fake nacho cheese and processed Chili. Inhale in 3 bites. Toss box on side of road.

Budweiser 12 pack boxes, cans and bottles. Seriously. Because we were driving around drinking anyways. Don’t want to get caught with evidence if I get pulled over for my broken taillight and expired inspection sticker?

McDonald’s cups and wrappers. Again, quality eaters here. Can’t be bothered with that trash from dinner on the way around town. I’ll just toss it out right here. Someone else will pick it up for me.

I happen to jot down license plates of cars I witness littering. I don’t know what I ever planned to do with the list. Mail it in to a paper on a letter-to-the-editor? Anonymously mail it to the cops/DMV? So, rather than collecting dust in my truck’s glove compartment, here is the list, internet. Here is the dregs of our society, those too good to try and keep a clean city. Those who don’t need to be bothered with their own trash. Not when they can throw it out the window and never think about it again.

(if no state listed, it’s Virginia)
JJK-9032
JVM-8138
EQL-LOVE (rainbow stickers, “equal love”, prior to being granted equality for marriage, quit throwing trash out of your car window, trash is trash, even if they like each other)
VKI-651
JZK-1613
SPJ-8378 (our friends from North Carolina come to town to throw trash on our roads)
100-5937 (so do our friends from New Hampshire, yeah northern trash!)
7051Y
KDR-9455
KEG-4754
P3430 (handicapped plate, because parking up front isn’t good enough, you want people to pick up your trash too?)
TDK-858
JLH-6931
FP-2982 (a fraternal order of police plate, classy!)
512-DTZ (drove all the way here from Texas to toss out your trash? yeehaw!)

Vent complete, thanks for listening.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 9

2009-11-06T15:49:00.001-05:00

Just like last week, head over to Beer Control Offense to check out my NFL Week 9 pick'em.

Later!

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 8

2009-10-30T15:00:00.000-04:00

As per usual, check out my weekly NFL newsletter over at EBJ's BeerControlOffense.

Have a great weekend.

What The Hell, Exactly, Are You Talking About?

2009-10-28T15:50:00.001-04:00

I know anyone reading this, who has worked in an office before, has worked with someone similar to what I’m about to describe. And it’s been humorous in my life, up until recently, when I now have to occasionally depend on this person for something work related.

I’m talking about the talk-in-a-circle-in-work-speak-phrases-guy. The guy who doesn’t do anything, or produce anything of actual value for your company – but sure can talk a huge nice game, and it sounds like he’s busy at something.

I’m not even going to get into debatable made-up words, like the famous double negatives: irregardless or indescrepancy. Or the borderline phrases that people just use to start paragraphs like they’re one jumbled word now: needlesstosay, notwithstanding.

I work in a technical field, so I’m talking about the technical-office-speech-guy. For paranoid reasons, like anyone reads my blog anyways, and even if they did, like it would get back to the real person I’m talking about, and like they’d know who I am too? – I’m going to anonymously call my office-speak-guy, Fred.

Recent situation:

Me: “Fred, when we changed that butterfly valve from a manual valve to a flow control valve, we had to change the mag meter’s control to an FQI for local readings instead of an FIC with readings from the tank level control. Do you want the mag meter’s flow values available on the front end pump info screen in DCS or associated with the tank level?”

Fred: “You know, we need to circle the wagons here, get rid of the white noise, work with synergy and think outside the box. What I want to bring to the table here, going forward, is a way for us to keep our head out of the sand so we don’t drop the ball.”

Me: “What?”

Fred: “The bottom line is that we need to get on team red, do a full cost-benefit analysis, pick the low hanging fruit, and stay on our center of gravity. When I look at the strategic planning here, and check the measures of merit, I think we should talk offline on this issue without the client, keep them in a black box if you will until we’re ready to release the information down the pipe. Do a gut check, you know?”

Me: “So do you want me to show the flow numbers on the front end pumping screen in the control room, or do you want me to associate the flow numbers with the tank level control?”

Fred: “Look, I’m not trying to be the turd in the punchbowl here, but nine people can’t make a baby in one month. We need to get on the same page and touch base before going forward. We’ve got to do more, with less. We can’t just rubber stamp it.”

Me: “Fred. Listen closely. I want you to say a number, I want you to say the number 1, or I want you to say the number 2. If you want me to show the cooler’s flow numbers on the pumping screen, say 1. If you want me to show the cooler’s flow numbers on the tank level screen, say 2.”

Fred: “There’s a ten ton gorilla in the room, and this is like a hot potato. Did you check any piggy back issues? Don’t want to screw the pooch.”

Me: “Say 1 or 2. Just say the number 1, or the number 2. And then sign here.”

Fred: “I see how project coordination is going to work here, and our efforts shouldn’t be for a technological breakthrough, we need to use best practice, for a low maintenance solution.”

Me: “I’m displaying it on the tank level screen. Sign here.”

Fred: “Glad I could help. Make sure [insert name of big boss #1] knows we worked together on the I&C issues, not just the mechanical ones.”

Me: “Do you have any idea what I just asked you.”

Fred: “Of course I do. Did you see those Eagles this Monday Night?!?!?!”

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 7

2009-10-23T11:06:00.001-04:00

As per usual, check out HJB's NFL Week 7 Newsletter at BeerControlOffense.

Word.

Abbreviations, Acronyms, and other multi-syllable A words.

2009-10-13T10:11:00.001-04:00

If any of you have ever watched a football game with me, no matter who is playing, you know I can get pretty heated. Throw in the fact that one of my teams is playing in the game and heated is not even the right word. Yeah, you’re a nut, and I don’t like the added blood pressure thank you very much. Ahhh, don’t be a wimp!

I can get downright vicious in the stands of a game, a sports bar, or even in my own living room. My angst is typically directed at one of three places.

[1] the officials – standard sports fan fare, yell at the refs for bad calls. They're always bad calls? Well, in my book against my team a bad call!
[2] the other team – again, pretty standard, yell at the other team for being: stupid, ugly, bad, mean, cheaters, dirty, from Miami, or a pansy.
[3] my own coaches – probably pretty nonstandard here, to yell as much as I do at my own coaches. You think? Shoosh. Especially in the college ranks, these are adult men paid to coach and prepare 18-22 boys to be ready to play. I can expect nothing less than perfection from them, at all times, no exceptions. Seems fair. Damn right.

Well, insert one 2-1/2 year old boy into the mix, and my football viewing could be seen as non-proper-parenting. To put it lightly. Geez, who’s side are you on here? Hers. I knew it!

Anyways, I have a couple phrases I like to say (yell) during games, at very specific high tension moments or after a big play. Some of these phrases could be viewed under that list of non-proper-parenting-behaviors.

One specific phrase that comes to mind, typically said (yelled) to the refs after a horrible call against my team, or said (yelled) to my opposing team after my team completes a big play against them – is “SUCK MY BALLS!!!!!” It’s typically not said (yelled) only once, and is usually rambled off in increasing volume until I can’t breathe any more, depending on the meaning of the play and how big of a spot in the game we’re in.

Well, in order to more align me with what would be considered, proper-parenting-behavior, Mrs. HokieJayBee has politely requested that I use Abbreviations and Acronyms in front of lil’ HokieJayBee to shield him from the verbal wrath of watching football with daddy.

This past Saturday, lil’ HokieJayBee’s phrase of the day?

“Mommy! S my B’s!!!!”

[dancing in a circle] “S my B’s, S my B’s, S my B’s, S………………my………….Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’s!!!!!”

Nice work daddy.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 5

2009-10-09T15:57:00.001-04:00

As per usual, check out my boy EJB's Beer Control Offense,

----> here <---- for HokieJayBee's Week 5 NFL Newsletter.

Wrong Bowl.

2009-10-08T13:25:00.001-04:00

Hi reader(s). You ever have like a huge funny story from your past, that you just flat out forgot about, only to be reminded again recently, and you’re just flat stunned that you could ever forget that story? What? You make no sense. Um, you know what I mean. You get reminded somehow of probably one of the funniest stories you’ve ever heard, and you immediately think, “oh my God I’m going to put that on my blog!”, “how could I have not written this story down before??”. Just tell the damn story.

Luckily for me, I can actually tell you what day it was. It was Sunday, February 1, 2004. How do I know this? Super Bowl party. Patriots over Panthers. You know, the Super Bowl with the Janet Jackson boob incident. Ha! I knew you’d end up talking about bewbies! Shut up. I have a different story about that night.

Background: so, in my group of friends, we had one friend that, let’s just say, didn’t have a lot of game. Didn’t have a lot of luck with the ladies. (see former post, he’s the anti-Player to my other friend, the Player). Give him some credit. Ok, he has since turned it around and met and married a girl and he turned out ok. But, but, but, in 2004, he hadn’t turned it around yet, and was, ……….the anti-Player. Both by his own doing, too picky, nervous with the ladies, whatever – and, just some flat out bad luck.

Character Set-Up: so, he who shall be known as the anti-Player, had met a little lady the past fall of 2003 and hung out with her some. I’m not making fun here, either for or against him, but I don’t know what it meant back then for him to “hang out” with a girl. He always said any girls he liked just always hung out and classified him in the “friend zone”. Although in 2004, in our mid-twenties, I’m pretty sure I know what he meant when he said he had a friend, who was a girl, that he was “hanging out” with last fall. Unfortunately, in a continuance of his bad luck, this little lady was in the Air Force and was only in our area for the fall, for a class. When her class was over, she was returned by the Air Force to her base in,………….Arizona. We live in Virginia. Poor anti-Player, yet again.

Current Relevance: so, that night, Super Bowl night, we were all (~15-20 people) at another one of our friend’s house for the game. Everyone brought food or beer, there was a good big screen TV – we chose this guy’s house for big football games sometimes because he literally had stadium seating. i.e. he built a stand for additional couches to be behind the first section of couches. Enginerds are good for some things, see?

So, we’re at the party for the game. When the anti-Player gets a cell phone call in the middle of the third quarter. It’s his lady friend. The one from Arizona. They’re talking briefly. He’s excited to hear that she’s going to be in town soon. His mood is good.

Now It Gets Hairy: After hanging up with her, he’s telling some of us that he’s excited he’ll get to see again soon. Blah blah blah. We think nothing of it, at least, at the time, we’re watching the Super Bowl after all. Then his phone rings again. This is what we hear. “Ohhhhhhh, you’re here now?!?!? This Sunday??!?!??! And you’re leaving tomorrow morning??!??!?! Shit! Be right there!!!!”

You know that puff of smoke you see when the road runner disappears and then you see the hole through the wall where the coyote exited. Yeah. The anti-Player was gone before anyone could even get out, “later” or “bye”.

The remainder of this story is as recanted to us by the anti-Player, the next day. Many of the aspects of the story, are additionally humorous because they’re true, it’s literally how hard up he was.

Apparently he misunderstood her travel plans, and she was literally only in town for a day for the Air Force, and was leaving the next day. She had gone out with her coworkers to watch the game, but was now back at her hotel, a little inebriated. Girls make booty calls too!!!! He received her call and invite while at the party with us.

He proceeded to make the ~7 mile trip from the Super Bowl party to his house in roughly 3 minutes (with lights and traffic should have taken 15). He said he ran 2 red lights and hit over 100 on the main road. Hey, the anti-Player was in need, people.

He shit, showered, and shaved – and threw on some nice clothes at his house. He claims he did this in less than 2 minutes.

He then said he floored it back out of his neighborhood and hit 7-11. The way he describes the 7-11 experience is like a movie when everyone starts rooting for the protagonist of the story. He said he sprinted in, literally, ran to the beer cooler, grabbed a sixer of Heineken. Turned, sprinted to the drug store aisle, grabbed a box of condoms (here’s where I might have to question his story on his recant a little bit, he said he grabbed MAGNUM’s, but alas, it’s his story). Hits the candy aisle and grabs some mints and sprints for the counter. Crap, three people in line. Apparently, including the clerk, the four of them watched in humorous amazement as he entered the parking lot at full speed, screeched to a stop in the handicapped spot, sprinted in at full speed, grabbed beer, condoms, and mints – and headed for the counter. The three other customers at this point backed away from the counter and let him go first. The clerk, laughing hysterically, rang it up and bagged it ASAP for him.

He swears he heard, “go get ‘em tiger”, from an old dude in line. Total was around $14. He threw a $20 on the counter and sprinted out, no change needed.

Now he’s roughly a couple miles from Arizona-girl’s hotel. And two or three stoplights. He continues to floor it and take turns all too aggressively. And says he probably ran the lights leaving the 7-11 area. Now he says, he gets to the last light, to turn into the hotel. He’s sitting in the left hand turn lane, with a red arrow. He doesn’t run this one, because he’s run enough of them, so he’ll wait this one out, and use the time to catch his breath and prepare to see her (check teeth, have one of those mints, etc.) – oh and he doesn’t run this light because it’s going left across his city’s probably biggest road, 4 lanes of traffic.

So he sits, and waits. And waits. And waits. Moves his car up and back a couple times to ensure he would trigger the turn lane sensor. No luck. He says it was for a couple minutes, and a couple cycles of the light to the other direction, and no green turn arrow. He freaks. Next break in traffic, he floors it, screeching in place before taking off and cutting the wheel at max to the left to try and cut through the traffic.

About halfway across the intersection he hears a loud crash and then some grinding. He realizes he’s sitting at an angle and looking down and right. What the hell is with the front right tire? Oh, there it goes. As he watches it roll off down the road and into the ditch…..apparently all this heavy driving and screeching and hard turns sort of ripped the tire off the rim. He said he tried to drive on the rim for a second. Screw it. He’ll fix it tomorrow, if the rim could just get him to the hotel!!! He was right there! he was at the hotel…..Thankfully he talked himself out of that.
Then he said he thought about just leaving the car there. Leave it in the middle of the biggest road in town, in an intersection, on 3 tires, on Super Bowl Sunday – and he’ll get it later, he could just run to the hotel and leave it…… Thankfully he talked himself out of that.

Next best thing? He knows he’s going to have to change the tire out and get the spare on. But dammit. He’s wearing sweet ass dress clothes for his lady. Can’t get those all greasy or sweaty. So…….yep……got naked.

[side note: I have to interrupt here to let you know, in the most non-gay way, that we always teased the anti-Player because he couldn’t get girls because he was a nervous dork around them, it wasn’t his looks or his body. And he also works out 11 days a week and is pretty jacked.]

His night couldn’t get worse. Except, yep, you guessed it. Sirens and lights. Blue lights. State trooper pulls up, blocks traffic, sets up some flares and walks over to the anti-Player. Now, in your best Hollywood imagination, picture this:
*4 lane road, busiest in town.
*SUV, hatch open to get the spare out. Sitting on 3 tires and 1 rim. In the middle of the intersection.
*Young man, muscular in great shape, wearing only dress shoes and socks, boxers, and a tank-top undershirt – trying to get the SUV lifted on the jack.
*Passenger door open where he threw his clothes in, and got the jack and wrench out.
*In view on the front seat: 6 pack of Heineken, box of condoms, box of mints.
*Young man, frantically changing the tire like he works on a NASCAR pit crew.

My friend, the anti-Player, said the state trooper didn’t say a word or help. Just watched in amazement and laughing the whole time at the situation. When he finished, picking up everything, he said the state trooper walked over to the car, grabbed one of the Heinekens, got back in his squad car with a “good luck kid” and drove away. Other than the “good luck kid”, not a word was exchanged.

So he pulls over to the hotel, gets his dress clothes back on, eats another mint, and sprints into the lobby. Up the elevator to her room. Pauses a second in the hall to catch his breath, make sure his clothes look decent. Condoms in the back pocket. A 5-pack of Heineken to share in hand.

Knock, knock, knock.
No answer.
Knock, knock, knock.
No answer.
Knock, knock, knock.
Finally, an answer. It’s his girl. He thinks. It looks like her. Only a death came over, rolled over, and tossed her at the door in her pajamas.

Alas was anti-Player’s life and luck, he got the booty call from a drunken happy version of his girl. Then after the work at home, 7-11, and changing a tire – he got to spend the rest of Super Sunday holding her hair at the Hampton Inn’s super “bowl”.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 4

2009-10-02T16:23:00.001-04:00

Well crap on me. No posts this week? My bad.

At least you get this week's NFL Week 4 newsletter.

Still posted ----> here <---- at my boy BCO's page.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 3

2009-09-25T16:15:00.000-04:00

Again, check out this week 3 NFL pick-em newsletter over at my boy EBJ's Beer Control Offense page.

Click -----> HERE <-----

Allowed to Make Fun of Something?

2009-09-24T16:53:00.008-04:00

So I’ve got a story about the rules on who is allowed to make fun of something or someone, and when. I’m going to toss out a caveat that I’m not here to discuss the merits of making fun of something or someone, or that it is never ok. For the sake of this conversation, let’s assume we live in a world where the occasional making fun of something or someone is ok, but that there are rules. You know, those unwritten rules we all live by.

Like, two men shall never share an umbrella, under any circumstance. Don’t question the rules, just follow them. You just have to understand, there are these rules. You don’t have to like them or agree with them. Just know, they are there.

A little story background: I drive a truck. A big fucking truck (BFT). I could grunt at you and say something like, “uggg me man, me drive hemi”. It’s big, it’s loud, it’s got modified headers and modified intake and modified exhaust. Making up for something? No. Jerk. I just drive a big loud truck. Can you help me move? Ha! I do get that a lot. Anyways, it’s over 400 horses of pure win. It’s roomy, it’s loud, it has Sirius satellite radio – I basically have no complaints. In a wet road fishtailing incident, if anyone is keeping score, it’s Big Truck 1, Light Pole 0. And the truck came out fine, and the driver, moi, came out fine. Not a scratch. This is why one drives a big truck, you win.

My parents used to teach me about the law of gross tonnage. Like, when driving on the interstate. If a big rig wants to change lanes, he puts on his blinker. That blinker is not flashing at you to ask for permission. It’s flashing at you as a warning shot. “I am coming over.” Law of gross tonnage, I am bigger than you. So other than those big rigs, when on the road, I am the big one, and I am the winner. You’re an asshole. No no, I’m not being an ass, I’m just acting hard. I’m just trying to say that now I’ve driven a large truck, I’ll never drive something smaller. It’s an active “I’m an aggressor” feeling and a passive feeling of safety in the big ride. People reading this who drive big trucks know what I’m talking about, people who don’t drive big trucks think we’re assholes.

In my office, I’m the “big truck guy”. This means when office furniture needed moving, I move it. When we have group lunches out, I don’t drive. I typically ride with my friend, here we’ll call him “the Doctor” (don’t ask, long story). The Doctor is notoriously not a big truck guy. He recently upgraded his Honda Civic to a new Toyota Prius Hybrid thingee. Like, he could get infinite gas mileage if he wanted, not just the 50 mpg they advertise. We could pick up his car and put it in my truck bed and I could carry the car around everywhere and he’d get infinite mpg. I make fun of him all the time, but the truth is that he’s economically and environmentally conscious, and………..blah blah blah he has over an hour commute every day and saves gas money.

Anyways, the other day for lunch, he drives to lunch. You know, two dudes, cruising in the Prius, straight pimping. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Shut up. Luckily it’s not raining, so there’s no chance of two dudes, rolling in the Prius, to arrive at said lunch destination and share an umbrella. What do we do to counteract this look, these two guys rolling to lunch together in the hybrid? What any two red blooded American males in our situation would do. We up our rep with a lunch at Hooters. Yeahhhhhh boiiiiiiiiii.

Soooooooo, we’re walking across the Hooters parking lot on our way in, and from behind me to my right, I hear:

“WHAT……………THE………………….FUCK?!?!?!!?!”

“huh, sup?”

“Who the hell would drive that little thing? Jesus.”

“Dude….you...........

can’t make fun………of him............."

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse.

2009-09-22T11:18:00.002-04:00

So I’m sitting at the bar last Saturday morning. It’s 10:30am. We’ve had our snacks. Now we’re having our pre-tailgating-pre-game beers and shots. Yes, that’s how we roll in Blacksburg. 33oz schooners and jager bombs before the sun passes the tree line is just what we do. Then we go to games and curse our offensive coordinator for 58 minutes and then rejoice like madmen when we score late to win. Either way, like a sprinter’s world records can be tainted by “wind aided” – our cheers are specifically “drink aided”. And if you have to start early, you have to start early.

So anyways, we’re sitting at the bar – me, Mrs. HokieJayBee, and four of our best friends. For the sake of the brevity of this post, we’ll just call one of the friends, “the Player”. No further explanation, just call him the Player. Our friend, the Player, has cycled through some girlfriends in recent years. Recent years? Ok, you’re right, since I’ve known him. And he’s pretty much always got something going with someone, in any city, no matter where I’ve been with him. See, too much explanation. You’re right. Ok.

This week’s sign of the apocalypse: So we’re sitting there drinking away, watching College Football Gameday. And Mrs. HokieJayBee turns to the Player:

“Hey, do you still talk to [INSERT GIRL’s NAME HERE]?”

[snickers] “nah, things didn’t end well there.”

“Man, I need to unfriend her”.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 2

2009-09-18T09:16:00.001-04:00

Again, check out this week's NFL pick-em newsletter over at my boy EBJ's Beer Control Offense page.

Click -----> here <------

New Pet Peeve.

2009-09-16T16:53:00.001-04:00

I’ve got a new pet peeve: People’s damn e-mail signatures. I don’t know if it’s people being pompous, or just flat out retarded. But I don’t care to read all that crap you have with your name at the end of your e-mails.

Things I need in your e-mail signature:
*Maybe your company. Maybe. I don’t need to know it now if I haven’t already learned who I’m working with; I’m sure as heck not going to learn it from your e-mail signature.

*Your position. Within reason. Don’t draw this out. Limit, 2 words. If you can’t tell me your position in 2 words or less, you’re in a made up position or you’re typing us crap to make yourself feel important.
So no:
Executive Auditor of Software Production and Management Coordinator
What the fuck is that? You’re a secretary and play solitaire all day?

*Maybe your department. If it matters. Maybe. Again, 2 word limit here. And don’t double dip here with the position description either. So no:
Vice President of Process Engineering
Process Engineering Department
Well no shit.

*Your phone number(s). Just list any important applicable ones with area codes.

Things I don’t need in your e-mail signature:

*NOT YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS. For God’s sake don’t type me your e-mail address…………..in………………..an………………e-mail. I happen to be the proud owner of one of those new fangled computer thingees and my e-mail program has a REPLY button.

*Some super overblown logo from your company. And in some people’s case, an actual animated (.gif I assume) piece of crap picture. I have some people that I converse with regularly via e-mail that have roughly 500k (half a Mb!) in e-mail crap in their e-mail. Like, if they were to send me an e-mail, that the body of the e-mail said, “hi”. The e-mail is half a friggin Mb. Really? Stop with that. Just stop.

To finalize, here’s an example of what the world needs from your signature:

HokieJayBee
BorderlineTMI Blogger
Blogspot
(757) 867 5309

Things That Amuse Me, I mean Bug Me – The VA State Budget

2009-09-15T15:32:00.002-04:00

‘tis funny. This piece, when it was originally dreamt up in my pretty little head, was just another “Things That Amuse Me” piece. Jay, you have an enormous head. Shut up, it’s a saying. I know my head isn’t pretty either. Anyways, this piece became a “bug me” piece when I learned a little bit of information this weekend from a friend of my wife and mine.

I must warn you, Jay is about to take you on a long strange trip to get to a point. No I’m not! Ignore the man behind the curtain please - my goal for the piece just changed is all.

Ok, we all have gripes about our government. Whether you’re Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal, active in government or not – it doesn’t matter – we all always have gripes about our government(s). For the sake of this piece, I’m talking about my state’s (commonwealth’s) government – Virginia.

Fact 1 – Virginia is one of very few states that has a “personal property tax”. Yeah, pay extra every 6 months to own stuff. So, you go to the dealership and get that new Maxima. All the fixins, out the door, $45,000. Plus the standard tax, title, tags – and other various crap the dealerships put on you. The tax there is the sales tax. The normal ~5% sales tax you pay to buy anything, from bubble gum to clothes to cars. Regardless of whether or not you paid in full at the dealership, or financed the vehicle, you’ve got this internal feeling that you just paid for a car – and now you “own” it.

This is where Virginia steps in and says, congratulations on owning that new personal property. Now, every June 5th and December 5th you owe money for owning personal property. Yeah, you pay them, again, every June and December, for the fact that you own stuff. Boats, jet-skis, motorcycles, cars, trucks. I’d estimate (based on prior vehicle and subsequent taxes paid) that that $45,000 Maxima is gonna ring you for ~$600 every 6 months. Yep. Sucks. It’s utter BS.

[clears throat] Shoosh. My point to starting with that, is that Virginia should never have any budget problems. In fact, a few years ago we had a budget surplus and it was on the table to remove the personal property tax. /rejoice But alas, that fell through and they did God knows what with the budget surplus. So, with this phantom you-bought-something-and-paid-tax-to-buy-it-but-now-have-to-pay-more-tax-every-6-months………Virginia should never have budget problems. Ever.

Fact 2 – and the reason this was almost a “Things That Amuse Me” piece. Virginia is also one of only two states (Connecticut I think) in the nation that does NOT allow radar detectors in your car. Yeah, can’t use them. They even have radar-detector-detectors. Which I don’t get how that would work because the radar detector could be a passive device so how can you detect the detector if it’s purely set up as a passive collection device. Apparently they do emit an active search frequency, but I don’t get how that could be distinguished from which car it is emitting, let alone against all the cell phones, blackberries, satellite radios, satellite direction Garmin-Tom-Toms, etc. ----- but I digress. My point, and things that amuse me, is that I (conspiracy theory) always used to joke that there’s only one reason Virginia outlaws the use of radar detectors. They’re cheap and don’t want to upgrade technology on the police/state trooper’s radar units. If we simply outlaw the new technology to circumvent our ancient technology, we can just keep using the old technology without worry. Then they pay for radar detector detectors….so this seems stupid. The reason this amuses me, is, yes, you can be driving down the interstate here in Virginia……and you won’t see a state trooper on the side of the road with a fancy radar unit mounted on his vehicle, or a hidden unit that you don’t know which direction of travel he’s currently scanning, etc. You’ll see a Virginia State Trooper parked on the side of the road, standing outside his car, pointing a huge ass radar gun at you, 1985 style like he’s clocking Nolan Ryan at the ballgame.

So, they outlaw “radar detectors”, meaning you can’t purchase a unit that is mounted on your dashboard that tells you when police are scanning with radar for your speed…….but they didn’t outlaw “radar detectors”, meaning your eyes.

So I’ve established two reasons there shouldn’t be budget problems in Virginia. First the ridiculous Personal Property Tax and secondly, they don’t invest in higher end technology for the police force. We could throw in that, holy crap, Virginia also participates in a state run lottery system. Actually, two of them. One is internal to Virginia only, and also a member of one of the PowerBall/MegaMillions multi-state lotteries.

This post was originally going to end with the “amuse me” part about the cops standing on the side of the road with their 25 year old radar guns. But after learning something this weekend, regarding the state budget, it turned into “Things That Bug Me”. You see, my wife is a teacher. And we just learned this weekend that the governor and state government here are going to “ask” (read: force) all state school employees to take a day of furlough. Working one day this spring for free, giving the money back to the state government. Really? My wife’s school is already overcrowded and understaffed. And they didn’t even get a cost-of-living increase this year.

So………we’ve got a ridiculous personal property tax, we’ve got the friggin lottery which is supposed to be putting millions into the state education system, and we’ve got the fact that they aren’t updating other state programs (the radar gun side story is tongue in cheek at a real issue). This is serious stuff. Where is this money going? Where did the surplus go? Where is the spending?

Well this past weekend, traveling to VT for a home football game, we found out where. Every friggin state rest area on the interstates have $120 trash cans, multiple ones, in each bathroom. There’s Simple Human $120 (yes, $120 if you can't see it in the below pic) trash cans in every bathroom.

Seriously? Great appropriation work jackasses.

HokieJayBee's NFL Week 1

2009-09-11T16:44:00.003-04:00

I typically write a wall of text NFL newsletter every week of the NFL season. Predicting games, trying to be funny, who sucks?, who is good?, quoting stats and generally putting my opinion out there on a bunch of NFL stuff every week.

I was going to post them here, but after a quick e-mail discussion with my boy EBJ over at BeerControlOffense - we decided to post my weekly NFL newsletter with his weekly college version. His site is more sports related anyways :)

Check it out here :)

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse.

2009-09-10T13:56:00.004-04:00

*warning* only my fellow World of Warcraft-ers will get this, but I definitely just had a sign of the apocalypse.

I'm not going to get into my inner nerd-dom and get into the details of what happened. Let's just say that in the engineering world, getting it perfectly laid out from your customer EXACTLY what he wants, EXACTLY what he thinks he's paying for - is paramount!

In a discussion today with an instrument vendor, my instrument technicians, my main customer, his subcontractors overseeing fabrication of the vessel where the instrument in question is installed, and our purchasing agents - I said, and I quote:

"No, no, it is working as intended."

Blizzard, are you hiring in your customer service or GM departments? I've already got the response down. You save on training!

You're a nerd. Yep.

This Post Is Brought To You By:

2009-09-10T11:51:00.004-04:00

Hey guys and gals.

Sorry for the 6 day posting hiatus. I had that travel down to ATL watch 'bama beat up my beloved Hokies, then an extended holiday weekend, then back to work - and 6 other excuses that you don't care about. Anyways, I'm back and I'll be putting out my week 1 NFL newsletter here later today or tomorrow.

In the mean time, I have to wax on something that you must try. I'm not going to turn this site into an advertising blog - unless it's just something that is flat out amazing and I like it and think you should try it. I have no affiliation nor make any kickback from any of this. Unless of course a representative from management from a company I highlight happens to see it and wants to mail me some....

But anyways.......I guess I'm going to occasionally write on a certain product, and I will not get crazy about it. It will be a solid description of the product and I'll try and keep the emotion out of it too much. I'll try and be calm about this, when I do feel the need to comment on a product.

YOU HAVE TO FRIGGIN TRY SIMPLY ORANGE - ORANGE JUICE WITH THE MANGO. OMGWTFBBQ IT IS SO FRIGGIN GOOD. IT IS SO FULL OF WIN. GET SOME, NOW!

That is all.

I got peed on this morning.

2009-09-04T11:35:00.001-04:00

Short quickie post this morning, I gotta run! Driving to Hot-lanta today for the VT/’bama game tomorrow! Woot woot, it’s college football season!

If you’d believe that when I got up this morning, my running to-do and priority list in my head was churning. What did I have to get done before work, at work, and prepare right after work – to get out of town and on the road? When I first got up and started to have these to-do and priority list thoughts, writing to you all on here came up. First, yes, I’m that much of a nerd bomb, I do make little to-do lists all the time. He does. Second, yes, shed a tear, whatever, I did think about how I’d be posting over the weekend and if I wanted to pre-write and post things for you reader(s). Don’t be sappy. I’m not, I’m just saying that when I got up this morning, I was trying to think how I’d get a post on before I left town, and what a good short one would be about.

And wouldn’t you know it. Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways. I didn’t have any good topics on my running list of writing topics that would make a good short post. I feared I wouldn’t have any time before leaving for Atlanta to hit you all up with a good post. And bam, sometimes life just works out, and I was handed a great short post for you (all). And, and, and it’s going to fulfill to a tee, the blog’s title and let’s tread that TMI line.

Everyone has a morning routine. Work mornings are typically hectic for everyone. My house is not any different. We’ve got the two idiot huskies to take care of, the pool to care for (it’s labor day, put the cover on! No more chlorine hands at work!), and of course we’ve got the boy. He’s not a “terrible”-two by any means. But he’s……let’s just say……a handful. Well said, politically correct and all. And when I’m half asleep and trying to pry the gunk out of my own eyes, I’m not always ready to handle full-two-year-old-boy parenting at the butt crack of dawn.

Sometimes, based on a simple ratio of time available to get ready : snooze bar hits : morning meetings at work for me or the misses : did my son have a bath the night before – sometimes we throw the boy in the shower with one of us to save time.

If you remember my noun-ified verbs from the other day, you know I’m a Long Shower-er. DO NOT UPDATE THIS STORY’s DETAILS! No no, still innocently. Meaning, I just simply like to take long showers, and sit on the built in seat in my home’s shower.

So this morning, I’m sitting on my seat, relaxing, just thinking about nothing and generally enjoying the hot shower. It’s decided that based on the timing of the morning and our busy-ness, we’re going to throw the boy in the shower with me.

I wash his hair, “close your eyes, don’t want to get soap in it”.

“Ok, now wash your body. Wash your armpits, like daddy.”

“Now wash your knees. No, that’s your elbows silly. Wash your knees. Here. Good job.”

Everything is going well, we’re going to rinse and get out.

Jay…... Jay! JAY!!!!!!!! Extra stream……….. Extra stream!!!!!!! Right foot. 98.6 degree stream. Yellow, hitting your right foot!!!!!!! JAY, move your foot!!!!!!!!!

Things That Bug Me - That Little Red Squiggly

2009-09-03T16:30:00.004-04:00

You guys are going to really start thinking there’s a lot of good planning going on in this here head. They’d be wrong. I know. Can you be quiet for a second and let me talk to the reader(s)?

You can at least maybe believe it, that there’s some forethought and good general writing practice going on, right? You see, in yesterday’s post, I joked about Bill Gates’ little red squiggly on my line about my own retardedness. He and his cronies at Microsoft Word – Department of Red Squigglies and Suggested Replacement Words – or the DRSSR as I like to call them – thought I should have been talking about my own beardedness. Things I find funny: Squiggly is a word according to the DRSSR, Squigglies is not. You just typed Squigglies, again. Yeah, well, what the hell is the correct word for more than one Squiggly? Squiggli? Nope, red squiggly. Squigglys? Nope, red squiggly. Squiggles? Whoa, that passed. So, more than one squiggly is correctly typed (spoken?) as squiggles……in fact, if you right click on Squigglies, Squiggli, or Squigglys – it lists other proper tenses/conjugations of Squiggly for you. The gerund, the nounified verb of doing a squiggly – squiggling. Hey, look, Bobby is good at squiggling. The action of currently making a squiggly? Squiggles. Hey, look at Bobby, he squiggles with his left hand.

Wait a minute! Yeah, I saw it too. Dammit. Squiggles isn’t the plural of Squiggly. It’s the present tense verb for the act of making a squiggly. He squiggles. Bah humbug! So there isn’t a proper plural version of the word Squiggly…..I shake my fist with vigor at you, Bill Gates.

Wow, stellar opening Jay, and look, only took 10 little red squigglies. Ha! You wrote it too. Dammit! I curse you Bill Gates! You just made my day. You know I can make you stab your own eyes out with your pen, right? Yeah. You know I can make you involuntarily shit your pants at work right? Yeah. Then shut it. Fine.

Before I get into the main point of today’s verbal diarrhea, I think the word “Squiggly” is actually an adjective. The line is squiggly. I think the noun would be squiggle. It is a wavy line, it is a squiggle. Or the verb would be squiggle. I will squiggle on this paper. So that plural would be correct at squiggles, or the present tense would be that same squiggles. But don’t rain on this parade Microsoft! Don’t do it. You’re an absolute idiot. Yep. Your point today? Oh yeah….

My accidental tie to yesterday’s post, where I was maybe trying to get an inkling of credit for having some forethought, was to be about things that bug me again. Things That Bug Me – That Little Red Squiggly.

The DRSSR is a funny group. And they’re not very consistent. It’s bothersome. It’s bothersome for someone who types a lot – both for pleasure and employment.

You can’t quote me here, because I forget the misspelling I did actually type, but the other day I was trying to type the word “glue”. It went something like this. Apparently my right hand was placed one key off on the keyboard….so when I went to the “L” key, I hit the “K” key. And subsequently next hit the “Y” key instead of the “U” key. So I started typing “glue” by typing “gky”. Noticing my mistake, I reached up with my pinky to the “backspace” key, but again, with the hand misplaced by a key, I reached up and hit the “=” key instead, twice, one for the “K” and one for the “Y”. At this point, if I remember correctly, I had typed, “gky==”. Thinking of course that I’d backspaced properly, it was time to restart typing “glue”. I start in with the “GL”, only to then see on the screen, “gky==gl”. At this point, flustered, my fingers bounce on or near the remainder of the word and I’ll fix it. So I ended up with something along the lines of “gky==glaue”. And?

Well I’ve got two things to say about this. 1. one of the suggestions for “gky==glaue”, for the correct word, is “glue”. What the fuck? You know I was trying to type “glue” out of that. You can’t tell me that the computers at Microsoft have preprogrammed misspelled words based on the incorrect placement of hands, just off to the left, to include the backspacing, rather “=”, and then the reattempt at the word. You can’t tell me that. No way. Yet, somehow, it knew I was trying to type “glue”. Of course, 2. Copy and paste that “gky==glaue” into your Word. Right click it. It also thought I could have been meaning to type “gay glaze”. Gross, what the hell Jay? I don’t even want to know what that is. I know, I know, only added for gratuitous humor. The point was, I was amazed that it knew, from that, that I was trying to type the word “glue”.

Bringing me to what pisses me off about That Little Red Squiggly. The DRSSR is so friggin smart, it knows that “gky==glaue” is glue – but it can’t decipher other mistakenly typed words. For example, from recent typing of my own, that caused me to start a list for this post.

“unfortunatley” ---- WHAT?? Big brain on Bill Gates. You can’t tell that’s supposed to be “unfortunately”????

“Satruday” ---- Seriously? What the hell other word could I have been meaning to type there?

“comppleted” ---- Yeah, I could see how you maybe didn’t see what I meant there. That’s clearly NOT the word “completed”. In fact, you’re right Bill, I meant to type “bearded”.

[that's not me]

Things That Amuse Me

2009-09-02T14:48:00.006-04:00

And maybe only me. Ha, it should say, “Things That Amuse Me, because I’m immature”. So what? There’s simple stuff that I find funny. And that’s all. No hidden agendas, just another mini-confessional about stupid stuff I find amusing. They are:

*My Own Retardedness. Ok, wow. While typing this here little blog for you reader(s), I just found a funny. According to Bill Gates’ little red line, “retardedness” is not a word. Irony is ironic sometimes. Wow, how funny is that, on so many levels? In an effort to make fun of something about myself, I tried to insinuate my own stupidity, and in this case, my inability to learn from making a previous mistake. So I totally tried to use something that’s not a word? Idiot. Yep, that’s funny. And on top of that, right click retardedness, and Bill Gates’ thinks I should have said, “my own beardedness”. Well thanks Bill. I did mean to go into a monologue about my Fu Manchu.

*Take 2. My Own Idiocy. Yeah, get on with it. Ok, inability to learn from a previous mistake. And this one, yes, I admit, happens EVERY time. At work, in my office, we have one of those fancy workstation printer/scanner/copier/fax/tie your shoes/general do anything machines. Like the big ones from the commercials. It pretty much rocks. And with my MBA, it only took admin like 4 weeks to teach me to use it. So anyways, when you want to use it as a scanner, you can set it up to scan your document and you can program it to e-mail it directly to you. And since it’s on the office intranet/LAN/[insert correct compu-nerd term here], it’s pretty much an instant e-mail. Like, the scanned document is on my computer before I can walk the ~30 feet back to my desk. And it never fails, every time, EVERY time I get back to my desk, I’m like, “ooooh, I have new mail!”…..Oh wait, it’s from me, from the scanner. Sad panda. Ok, maybe retardedness was the right word. Ha! See! Somehow, between choosing my scan settings, hitting scan, and walking back to my desk, WITH the subject document IN HAND – I forgot that I just sent myself mail. EVERY TIME.

*Dick and Fart Jokes. See, because you’re immature. Again, so what. I’m an American male below the age of 80. Dick jokes and farts are funny. I’m at the point in my life where I might have to actually start watching my mouth and the volume of the visits from my friend Gaseous Clay – as I don’t want to force this humor onto my toddler son. He must learn dick and fart humor on his own. But I have to admit, in my early 30’s, there’s no slowing of the humor in cock-n-ball jokes, innuendos misinterpreted, or just a good ol’ fashioned fart. Wow Jay, just wow. Shut up. Case in point. There’s a new commercial out for Gas-X. Dude is being interviewed for a job. He’s got tummy rumbles and for the commercial’s sake, let’s just say, to borrow a line from my 5-year-old niece, he’s a little gassy. He’s tossing and turning uncomfortably in the chair, and his interviewer leads in with, (what he hears) “oh I see you graduated at the top of your gas, and you’re flatulent in three languages.” His interviewer’s assistant comes in, distracting her for a second, so he turns and leans and takes a Gas-X. The assistant, “sorry to disturb ma’am, your son Rip is on line toot.” HAHAHAHAHAHA, sorry people, that’s funny shit. Jon Stewart’s got nothing on Gas-X writers!

*Stupid TV. Huh? Other than Gas-X commercials? Yes, like specific shows that amuse me – that probably shouldn’t. Like, I just used the demographic that I’m a male below the age of 80. That whole logic is thrown out the window, when I sit down every Sunday night and watch, with great amusement, Randy Jackson’s America’s Best Dance Crew. You’re apparently a 13 year old girl. Hey, you sit and watch it too. Because I have to! I can’t exactly just leave this dome piece of a head and go do something else. I mean, you don’t have to remember or admit to watching it, yet here you help me type. Touché. Another show that I like, and I admit to near hernia-style laughing, is the ABC show “Wipeout!”, based on the Japanese show “Most Extreme Challenge” or something like that. If you haven’t seen it, contestants are put to a basically impossible obstacle course, always situated over water or mud, and they attempt to get through it. Roughly 0.008% of contestants can successfully do the course. The hilarity that ensues seeing out of shape people throwing themselves into horribly painful looking wipeouts, is well, funny to me.

*Bad Jokes. Perhaps you’re too easily amused. Nah, but I admit to loving some bad, corny jokes in my time. I can’t explain it. Maybe it has to do with the state I was in when I heard the joke. Like, Nebraska? No, you moron, your retardedness is amazing. Like, was I drunk at a party when I heard it, and laughed until I puked, so it just has this overly funny association? Who knows. Example? Don’t do it Jay, not the toaster oven. Sorry, have to now.

So there’s these two muffins in a toaster oven. One of them looks over at the other one, “man, it is HOT in here.” The other one looks up, “HOLY SHIT! A talking muffin!”

Sorry everyone, sorry. Aw, quit being a scrooge, that’s funny.

Noun-ifying Verbs

2009-09-01T15:18:00.002-04:00

So this is Borderline TMI, right? Well I guess it’s time for a mini-confessional. Be careful Jay. No no, nothing too crazy – just some self deprecating humor. I won’t let this get too far in today with you having to wonder what the hell “nounifying verbs” means. Well, I totally made it up. In my pretty little head, it’s a way to explain my urge to add “-er” to any word to name someone based on an action.

I’m not the only one. I do have one very very funny avid memory of a drunken spill and bed bouncing, while imitating an Olympic gymnast, that I apparently flung my wife off said bed and into the nightstand, and she exclaimed that I was a “fat lip-er maker”. She didn’t exactly use the “-er” in the right place, but you get my point. She’s going to kill you. Hope not. She’s probably my only reader anyways so she doesn’t have to fear that a bunch of other people will learn that story.

Without any more delays from the peanut gallery……
I’m a long shower-er. Wow, right off the bat with a big embarrassing-alone-time-story? No no, don’t get too excited. Not like that. I mean, I innocently just take long showers. Well, innocently if you’re not so much of an earth lover that you’re mad at me for wasting water. But then you’d be an overreact-er. I can’t explain it. Although I would consider myself not deeply spiritual, maybe it’s my little way of meditating. Because, I don’t really think about anything. There’s no plan, no routine. My shower stall at home has a seat in it, built in. I sit on it. The water runs over me. I do nothing. Nothing. And it’s so nice.

I’m a flatulate-er. Really, straight to this? Well, it is mini-confessional time. Actually, you’re male right? Um, yeah. Then this isn’t a big story. You just aligned yourself with every XY chromosome in the world. Congrats. Feisty today huh? Well, your “confessions” started with naked time and farts. Good point.

I’m a push-er. And now to drugs? No, no. I drive a large truck. It’s big, it’s loud. Long showers and gas guzzling Hemi’s, Al Gore just called, it’s for you. I drive with a simple rule. I think it was Newton’s or Darwin’s forgotten law. The Law of Gross Tonnage. I am bigger, heavier, and traveling at a high rate of speed. You will move / let me in / yield. And you will like it. You’re an asshole-er. I prefer push-er. My first car was a doo-doo brown Volkswagen Rabbit. I’ve been the push-ee. And I didn’t like it.

I’m a last-name-call-er. I guess I hope it doesn’t annoy people. I have the tendency to call people by their last names only. It’s more of a sign of friendship, as I only do it to friends. But either way, I call people, especially those with one- or two-syllable last names, by only their last name. And if their last name is three or more syllables, I come up with a snazzy abbreviated last name for them. Or even at a minimum, I call them their first AND last names, or maybe some fancy mixture of the two. Like, all the time. Not randomly, all the time. That becomes their calling name to me. I should make sure it doesn’t bug people.

I’m a reply-er. Like, always the last word. Not like every e-mail exchange is an argument or debate. But for some reason, I seem to always have just one more reply to an e-mail chain. Even if it’s just one more e-mail to say, “ok, see you there”, after we’ve both had two e-mails each solidifying the time and place and saying something along the lines of “ok, see you there”. I always just have this urge to send just one more, just to make sure they know I got the last one and we’re good. OCD much? Shut up.

I’m a wrong-lyrics-er. Huh? You know, when we don’t know, i.e. you don’t help me remember the real lyrics to a song. We just say what we think they are, or close. Sometimes it’s funny.

I’m a holler-er. Speaking of song lyrics, I’ve been known to latch on to a certain phrase from a song or two, and run with it. Like, really run with it, dead horse style. Fellow attendees of mine to a recent friend’s bachelor party up in NYC got treated to a double whammy. [a] wrong-lyrics-er and [b] holler-er, at the same time! Yeah, it was funny the first 200 times. The last 200 were too much? Lil John’s “Now stop! Oh! Then wiggle wit, yeah!” was over-volumized many many many times to the tune of “Stop now! Get it, get it, yeah!” Loser. Hey, that’s close. And when drunkenly yelled in the streets or clubs, it’s cool man. Eminem’s “shake, that ass, for me – I said, shake, that ass for me” was correctly lyricized, but again, probably over used and definitely by a holler-er. The point is, a combination wrong-lyrics-er, and holler-er, when under the influence of alcohol – not pretty.

I’m a menace, a dentist, an oral hygienist. Wha? Some people just got that. Man I’m funny. Right, you’re funny. Or you’re not. It’s one or the other.

I’m not an innocent nightstand-er. Speaking of alcohol. I’ve been known……..over-imbibing : nightstand : me : 4:00am. You do the math. I’ll get some Clorox wipes. Nightstands are not toilets.

PIPE!!!!!

2009-08-28T15:44:00.006-04:00

So I’ve got this friend I’ve fallen out of touch with. We all have them. I was just thinking about this friend the other day. Well first, let me say that this friend wasn’t a simple “falling out of touch” with. It was a very abrupt end to the friendship after some bullshit. Anyways, I guess the wife and I were out with some other friends the other night and talking about our fall plans (football travels :) ), and other friends we were going to see this fall came up.

So it probably went something like the old board-game Clue: we’re going to DC for XXX with person YYY and we’re using the ZZZ, we’re going to Atlanta for AAA with BBB and we’re staying with CCC, we’re going to Blacksburg on these weekends, we’re staying with fam on these weekends and going to try and see MMM for this game and NNN for that game. Etc. Etc. Etc.

At some point, my old friend came up. The standard, “have you seen him?”, “where is he?”, “have you talked to him since”, was where the conversation drifted to. The answers to those questions, and other similar to it, are: no I haven’t seen him, no, I don’t know where he is, although I know he was joining the Army, I haven’t talked to him in at least two years because the last time we even e-mailed was a simple, “hey I know we hate each other, but I wanted you to know my son was born and he’s healthy and we’re doing great, here’s a pic”. “congrats, that’s awesome, leaving for boot camp in 3 days, later”.

Since I know you can’t stop wanting to ask what happened, I’ll just say that my friend was a meat head. Lol, that’s mean and not true. I mean, he was a smart guy, read a lot about history, had good jobs – but he was a weight lifter. Actually got into big time. He was huge, you could see the fruits of his labors – like his bicep veins were about the size of my biceps. You’re scrawny. Shut up. But he was unstable. I met this guy in college in like 1996-97. And he was unstable then, big emotional swings, before he even got serious into the weight lifting. Then he got serious into it. And he got more unstable. I am by no means saying this guy raided Barry Bonds’ medicine cabinet, or saying that I am officially laying down the gauntlet of accusation. I’m just saying that if you were to have intimate knowledge of his bodily intake at that point in his life and you told me it included Jason Giambi’s mixtures – I would believe you.

Then, should you decide to throw alcohol into the mix, and this friend became even more Hyde than Jekyll. And, far be it from me to explain it, when groups of old college buddies get together for football, bachelor parties, cookouts, poker, whatever – there’s a running theme at these events, and it can be described in units of pints and liters. So, our last encounter was actually at a party at my house, and he had been imbibing, and there was a fight, and some threatening stuff was said to me and my wife and other friends, and he’s no longer welcome in my life.

Where is this going? Sorry, yeah, way off track. You think? I figured why we fell out of touch was a big part of this story, and now that I’m about to get into why I’m typing today in the first place, I realize why, or that we even, fell out of touch is totally irrelevant. Brilliant! But I’m not backspacing, deal with it. Fine, just get to the good part.

Wait, it does relate! You see, the funny part is centered around his weightlifting. That’s why I wanted to get the back story in. “Had a friend, we fell out of touch, because he was unstable while in a weightlifting binge, Oh hey! have a funny story about that!” It’s a stretch. Objection overruled, but make it quick. Thanks. So this friend, when times were better between us, invited me and some of our other boys into town one weekend to attend one of his bodybuilding competitions. You know, the Mr. Olympia Universe, cover-yourself-in-fake-bake-spray-and-pose-down-in-your-underwear, stuff. He made it out of his division and into the finals, but ended up like 5th, so no medals. But I think he was 5th out of like 18 in his weight class. Which was cool.

They’d put six of them up there for the music, routine, and pose-down – choose two of them for the finals. Then they’d put six more of them up there – choose two for the finals. And finally the last six – and last two chosen for the six man final. I want to remember and say that he was in the first six to go in his division, because I want to say that he was sitting with us in the crowd watching the other two groups of his division with us. He’d call them out, knew some of them, cheered for some, tell us who was big, who shouldn’t be in this division, etc.

They’d all come out on stage initially in a jump suit, sweat suit type outfit. And when their name would be called they’d disrobe and do their official routine of poses to their own music and then they’d line up for the six man pose off. Then the judges would choose the two to move on.

So anyways, when the third group got on stage, there was a guy up there who my friend said he saw backstage and the dude had no business entering this competition. Said the guy wasn’t cut, wasn’t built well, and didn’t know why he’d enter something like this and pose down with a bunch of huge cut up bodybuilders. Said the dude didn’t even look like he worked out, just looked like a regular dude. I was able to pick out the guy in question pretty easily, even when they were all up there and had on their sweat suits.

Jacket came off. My boy was right. This guy wasn’t cut up at all, he might not even be a weight lifter. I silently agreed with my boy, like, why would this guy even enter this competition? You were judging nearly naked dudes? Shut up! It was a bodybuilding competition and I was being an objective observer. Then the pants came off. And it quickly became readily apparent why this guy willingly signed up to be in a competition where he would be standing next to five other guys on a stage in front of a couple thousand people wearing only a Speedo.

Let’s just say, the judges and people in the first row might have had to duck if they didn’t want to get a mushroom tattoo on their forehead. I couldn’t help it, I’m that guy at sporting events, I heckle, I yell, I’m outlandish. I couldn’t help it. Don't do it. I yelled it.

PIPE!!!!

Psssst. Are you one of the X-Men?

2009-08-27T16:25:00.006-04:00

It’s not every day you get asked if you’re a super hero. But when and if you do, I guess you sure hope it’s for doing something super heroic-ly awesome, right? Jay, “it’s not every day” = never. Whatever, leave me alone, she still technically asked. So it’s not never.

So my company used to have a bunch more employees than we do now. There’ve been layoffs and we’ve downsized, I mean, streamlined, to a smaller work force to more represent the level of our back log and current amount of work we have to complete. We used to be spread out at three different company offices. Now, they’re trying to sell office #3 and have stopped leasing office #2. So the remaining employees, including myself, have all been moved to #1 of the three original offices. You traded in your office for a cube. Booooo. But there’s plenty of parking. Yay.

So, in the new office set up, I share a quad cube set up with:

*My Secretary (ummmm, I mean Document Control Representative), this place wouldn’t run without her. Amen. Right, amen. Right, that’s why I said amen. Right, that’s why I said….moving on.

*the older lady (ummmm, I mean woman from the Caulk Party in my “Home Improvement” piece), she writes our training manuals. SIDE NOTE: since I had put the idea for this piece down on my list, Caulk Party Woman has been let go too :(. Doesn’t affect the outcome of this story, but :( just the same. You’re an ass. Hey, full disclosure.

*Accounts Receivable Girl. I don’t have any dirt on her. We’ll just call her the pirate. A R G. Get it? Wow Jay,......wow. Shut up. That’s quality stuff.

So you see the red break-in-the-cube-wall I highlight? My Document Control Girl and I use this to pass notes. Ooooooooh dirty. No no, 99.9% of the time they’re about work. So they’re not really notes. It’s more like, we use the division in the cube wall to save ourselves the trouble of getting up and walking around the cubes to hand the other person something that needs to be reviewed, signed, routed, transmitted, etc. Actually, I can only think of two instances when they weren’t about work.

[1] I was having a particularly bad day, to include an hour+ argument on the phone with Credit Card Company X regarding some bullshit finance charges. PREVIEW!!!! - future post, Things That Bug Me – Citibank. Boy you really kept that anonymous “Company X stuff” up for a while. Be forewarned now to use kiddy language earmuffs when reading the Citibank post. Anyways, she hit me with an “Are you OK?” sticky note. Well, come to think of it, I think she just put the sticky note on a normal work transmittal she would’ve passed to me through the cube crack anyways – so this doesn’t even actually count as passing me a note. It was more of a cover letter, feigning worry for my well being, oh by the way here’s some work to do. I kid I kid.

[2] And here is where the namesake for today’s post comes from. Personal note passing through the cube crack #2: “Are you Wolverine?” See! Someone did ask me if I’m a superhero. Am I Wolverine!!!!! What heroic deed did I do today? What villain did I thwart to earn such a complimentary question? And she thinks I’m a badass superhero, not some crap Silver Surfer or Green Lantern. Dear Reader, read more, don’t let him take credit for this.

“huh?”

“Well, you see, I can hear you clipping your nails. Every day, like two times a day. So I figured there must be some explanation for the rate at which your nails grow. Like, you’re Wolverine or something.”

[Deflated] Ha Ha Ha Ha

“No. I’m not Wolverine. I bite my nails. So I trim them anytime they get past a bite-able state, in an effort to not bite them……and I can’t stand, CANNOT STAND, that hard skin that grows around the side of your nail if you bite your nails short. So I cut that off too. Right here ----->” (yes, I really drew her a diagram)

“Oh.”

Wow Jay, from Wolverine to “oh” in milliseconds……

NOTES:
[a] Please, no comments from Wolverine fans. Yes, I know those aren’t his “fingernails” that come out of his hands. Yes, I know that because of his mutated inhuman healing abilities, the Canadian government’s Weapon X Program bonded indestructible adamantium to his skeleton and claws to make him into a weapon. And therefore you couldn’t clip these indestructible devices with common fingernail clippers. So I couldn’t be Wolverine anyways, according to Document Control Girl’s logic. But run with it, ok?

[b] Also, please no comments from fingernail aficionados. Yes, I know that skin is called my cuticle. I just consider the cuticle the half moon thin skin that forms the base of each nail….not the hardened scar tissue part that grows around my nails when I bite my nails too short. And I didn’t feel like writing a big word like cuticle on a sticky note to pass back and forth through the cube crack. I was already deflated enough about the whole Wolverine thing anyways. You’re a loser. Yep.

Now I’m REALLY a Daddy.

2009-08-26T15:16:00.002-04:00

No I don’t mean like my wife and I had a paternity test done and Maury Povich called me and told me that with 100% certainty, my son is my son. Plus, we know he’s mine because if you knew me and my dome piece, you’d recognize the genealogical hereditary lines in the basketball-head-on-a-toothpick-body that is my son.

I mean I’m really a daddy because there are things that happen, each passing day with your first child, that are just amazing. And sometimes it’s the littlest, weirdest things that cause you to pause and reflect.

Jay, you’re a poet. That cause-you-to-pause stuff is ingenious. Shut up. Help me focus.

Before I fall too far off the list of things that make you a daddy, let me clarify for all of you second or later children, that your parents probably still love you too. And yes, you’re just as special as your older brother/sister who was your parent’s first kid. And I’ll love my second, third,…..that’s enough Jay….. child just the same. But there won’t be as many touching, amazing, flat-out-smack-you-in-the-face-you’re-a-daddy moments. Minus I guess my first daughter, since I had a son first. I guess I’ll have a whole different set of daddy realization moments when we have our first daughter.

But anyways…so you all know (or can at least pretend for the sake of this conversation) the normal list of things that happen, that solidify your daddy-hood. You can’t talk about that kind of stuff here, it’s not that kind of page. Not THAT stuff that happens that makes you a dad. Jerk. I mean the normal stuff of a son. First when you carried him to the scale at the hospital. First night of sleep lost when you have no idea what’s wrong with him. First roll over. First crawl. First words. First steps.

Those are all the normal things. I didn’t mention the first thing that makes you a true, heart-stopping, oh-shit, moment of your life. I’ve been in a car wreck. I’ve been in a Jeep that did 1-1/4 rolls off the road. I’ve broken bones. All of that is nothing, NOTHING, compared to the instant your son is born. You’re at your wife’s side, coaching her and freaking out more yourself than she is. And after watching the most special, nasty, amazing, gut-wrenching, beautiful, destructive, event of your life…..there’s a split second, where they’re lifeless. They’re purple. They’re yellow. They’re not breathing. They’re not moving. AND YOU ARE FREAKED THE FUCK OUT. Yeah, it was scary. It is probably only approximately 0.0005 seconds long. But it truly feels like an ETERNITY. Then the doctor turns him over, clears his mouth, rubs his back – and all is well. And you’re on to daddy memory #2, cutting the umbilical cord.

Is this going somewhere? Yes, shut up. So you have memory #1, your first instance as a dad, is flat freaking the fuck out. Then the good ones start. Umbilical cord. First nights. All the normal things I already listed. Now my son is 2. 27 months. Whatever, who keeps age like that? He’s starting to have his own personality. He’s starting to react to situations. He’s starting to be a little man of his own. Now you have the first time he uses the potty. The first time he spells his name. The first time you catch him lying about finishing his dinner.

“All gone!”
“Really? Let’s see what’s in your napkin!”
“All gone!”
“What’s this then?”
“Cheese!!! Daddy found my cheese!”
Yes, daddy found your cheese.

Earlier this summer, I thought I had moment-of-all-moments of daddy-hood. The first time my son hit a baseball I pitched to him. Sports aficionado myself, former baseball player, we’re starting early dammit. The first time he could hit the balls I pitch to him – I glowed in daddy-dom. That’s all I need. More memories like that. Swimming in our pool recently, he has lost his fear and probably his good sense. Now he’s a little daredevil. And I’ll have to watch him like a hawk, but I couldn’t be more proud.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better. My wife made us breakfast-for-dinner last night. It’s simple for her, and I like the occasional breakfast plate for dinner, since on work mornings I’m lucky to get a Pop-Tart and juice on my way out the door. You know, if you got up a little earlier and devoted more time and effort to eating in the morning, you could…. Just shut up.

So my son is eating in his big-boy-chair (feeding seat strapped to a kitchen chair), making a mess of his food, probably yogurt at this point. And my wife lets him try some of her plate.

“Ooooooh mommy dat’s good!”
“Yes it is. Here’s some more. It’s called bacon. Can you say bey-kuhn?”
“Daddy!!!!!! I Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaacon”.

[insert glowing light of fatherhood affirmation]

Wait, There’s Rules For That?

2009-08-25T12:03:00.004-04:00

Well, not in the sense like there’s a national rules committee, or even standardized rules for everyone to follow – but everyone has their own personal set of rules that they follow, in regards to the amount of slang and levels at which they cuss depending on who the fuck they’re talking to.

I thought of this subject the other day. You see, I have a ~30 minute commute to and from work every day. The morning ride, that’s for “Mike&Mike In The Morning”, or maybe to try for that last little bit of sleep on the way to work. I kid, I kid – but for the purposes of this conversation, I don’t talk to anyone in the morning, it’s too early. The afternoon ride, that’s a different story. I definitely have phases where I am abusing the free long distance of cell phones and use that time to catch up with friends and family. So, the other day, in succession, I spoke to: my wife, my best friend of all time, my brother, and finally a friend from my old office who recently moved back to the east coast.

It amazes me the automatic, subconscious level that my brain knows the rules. It knows to what level of slang or even cussing is appropriate to all these people. It’s not a calculation, I guess it’s just a learned associative property.

Jay, you’re speaking with your wife, be nice.

“Ok honey, I’ll meet you there, drive safe.”
“Ly”
“Lee?”
“Drive safe…..ly”
“yeah, sorry, drive safely” She’s a teacher Jay, deep breath.

Next was my best friend of all time. This conversation was about an upcoming fantasy football draft. We’re both professionals, but we have a vast array of unprofessional memories together from high school through college and beyond. We talk in a lot of slang, but not a lot of cussing. Actually, come to think of it, we actually talk in a lot of movie quotes. But the point here is, it’s not that cussing isn’t allowed, we just don’t do it. Like, neither of us would blink if the other one said, “that’s bullshit!”. I guess we just don’t, from years speaking in front of each other’s wives, or speaking at work on the phone. So it’ll be more like, “CIRCUMSTANCE!!!!! That’s crap!” Don’t ask, just accept it.

Next was my brother. He’s ~8 years younger than me. Did the college thing for a while and now enlisted in the Coast Guard. He’s doing great with it, and will be commissioned soon as he entered with college credits. We talk in a lot of slang too, and it’s always SO exuberant. No rules about cussing or not, but most energy here is spent on the exuberance, not the actual words or conversation.

“yo you see that hit on Boldin last night? Crazy shit!”
“BUHLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DAT!”

And finally, I spoke with a friend of mine from my old job. We both have multiple degrees and technical professional jobs. We both have a family and a young son. We’re both good people. And we’re both just crazy fucking dirty shit talking potty mouths when we get together. Where the fuck did this come from? When did it start? I don’t know. I had to chuckle. We talked about his new job. His move. His cars. My house. My son. His son. Travel plans for the fall. It was a perfectly normal situation. Minus the constant barrage of shit fuck cocksucker dickball titty cooter.

You ever wonder where your brain came up with these rules? I understand they’re learned over time. I can’t help but think my brain has this subconscious flowchart set up for the advancement of slang and language in conversations with people. And the other person is running a similar strategy.

Jay, would you like to see it? Wait, you really have one?

Home Improvement.

2009-08-24T14:22:00.001-04:00

Not like the Tim Allen show. Like, literal home improvement at my house.

Ok, so recently I was chatting with an older lady at my office. [read: not an “older” lady, a woman is who is simply older than I am] How do you politely say that? Do you just say “lady” or “woman” and not “girl” – and there’s an inherent assumption about age? Ok, if there’s not rules yet, I’ll make them. “girl” means younger, “lady” means equivalent age, and “woman” means older than you. There, now you can non-offensively discuss the females you work with. No matter how young or old they are, I must warn it is never ok to call them “ol’ cooter tits”. I’m just saying.

Back on track Jay….sorry. So, I was actually chatting with her because she is about the most frugal person I know. And, as described in “I Know Poops”, I went over how I was frugal for a week of eating right when my wife was out of town, and shopped as such with a very detailed list at the grocery store. She’s like that all the time, almost too frugal and will drive to separate stores to fill her grocery needs for the week based on sales and such. I think it’s a total waste and she doesn’t end up saving because of gas money for her car, and then travel time wasted and my time is worth more than the $0.83 saved on a package of hot dog buns. Her intricate stories of successful frugal-ing have become common office conversation pieces.

Back on track Jay….sorry. Anyways, we were discussing my eating habits that week, and my part-time life in the ways of high frugalness. And the conversation changed to, essentially, “what are you doing for your wife with her out of town?”. Ummm, I’m eating right, I’m not being a total wannabe-college kid douchebag, I’m not going to strip clubs. What else is there? I’m supposed to DO something FOR her when she’s out of town? It eventually morphed into whether or not I was completing any non-maintenance activities at the house with the wife gone. [maintenance activities: yard work, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, etc. – normal stuff] Was I completing any home projects with her gone? I have since come to learn that what my co-worker meant was, “…since the wife and kid are out of town, are you taking advantage of the peace and quiet to be able to get something extra done…”, like that you normally might not be able to work on. What I heard was, “…since your wife is out of town, it’s your duty to surprise her with a home project while she’s gone…”, While-You-Were-Out-style.

Back on track Jay….sorry. The same way that her frugal-ing stories are common office conversation pieces, I guess my personal stories for the water-cooler would have to center around my hatred for my home projects’ status and completion percentage. I hate the status of many of my home improvement projects, many of them are like 90% finished. I get all spread out and distracted and start something new and never finish the last job. So I have like 10 things 90% complete, but nothing all the way done. Sooooooo, knowing this tendency on my part, what she meant in asking about my work on home improvement projects with the wife and boy out of town, was…..was I taking advantage of the empty house?

I got into the conversation with excuses why I hadn’t started anything yet, for example:
*Initiative* – Working all day, coming home, not in the mood to change clothes and get to work on a work night, let me see what Saturday brings.
*Supplies* – I didn’t have the necessary equipment (power washer I borrowed was back at the owner’s, I’m re-borrowing it soon).
*Expertise* – I don’t have the expertise to safely, in code, install the breaker in my attic for the second master bathroom fan, so I am at the mercy of my electrically oriented friend’s schedule. I’ll need his help to do the electricking to code, ya hear.
*Other Plans* – One work night was already lost to other plans. I drive a truck. I help friends move furniture. It’s a character flaw.
*Dragons* – Unfortunately, as you remember from my spacebarfail post, I only know about spacebarfail in computer form because of World of Warcrack. Look, there’s dragons to kill and gold to collect. (see inset picture of heroin addict)

Back on track Jay….sorry. So one final job that came up, that my coworker agreed would be a good one to complete with the wife out of town, was the kitchen remodeling. See, that one is like 99% complete. The wallpaper is down. The walls are painted. The countertops are redone. The trim is painted. The windows are done. The cabinet hardware is changed out. The only left to do, outside of tiling the floor, which financially is put off until a later date, is to finish caulking the trim, windows, and cabinetry. For this one, the excuse used was basically the *Initiative* excuse. I didn’t feel like working all day at work, getting home, changing clothes, and then working in the kitchen – taping up walls/trim and caulking for a night.

In hopes to up my initiative, and talk me into working on the kitchen, my coworker yelled from her office to mine, “well why don’t you just have some of your boys over, get some pizza and beers, and have a caulk party”.

Say it out loud to yourself.

Yeah. Why don’t I?

Things That Bug Me – My Cell Phone Battery

2009-08-23T11:17:00.003-04:00

As you know, I’ve got my list of crap I want to write about for the first twenty-ump entries here. As I was scanning it for the next one I wanted to write about, I noticed a couple trends. So, I’ve decided that I’m going to have a couple running themes for entries. I know, I know, I said I’d be themeless. But there are going to be a couple repeating trends, so I figure why not use it. Now don’t you go getting all excited like it’s going to be so organized to the point like every Sunday is one type of column and every Wednesday is another certain type of column, or that even each themed column will get a weekly or otherwise other seemingly organized scheduled release. It won’t be like that at all. But, there will be at least two repetitive style columns.

"Things That Bug Me" – I think this is pretty self explanatory. I’m going to randomly let you into the inner-workings of this here mind and vent a little bit about things that bug me. It’ll probably be pretty simple things mostly, maybe something obscure once in a while. I’m not necessarily looking for your approval, "hey that bugs me too!!!11!32!!" On the other hand, I sure hope you don’t read it and now you have an immense hatred for something you didn’t before. But mainly, it’s probably going to center on simple things that don’t work the way they’re supposed to. A pretty common phrase I’ve been known to utter, "dammit, I paid $XXXX for YYYY, I sure as hell expect it to ZZZZ like it’s supposed to."

"Life’s Little Victories" – Another simple topic. I’m going to occasionally write about those little situations you have sometimes, where something so simple or inane just seems to be cool. It’s probably nothing to most people in fact, and the normal person doesn’t even think about it. But sometimes, I sit back (figuratively in my head) and chuckle (also figuratively in my head), and think, "wow cool! I sure am lucky because XXXX happened." It won’t be anything crazy or something that took CSI to figure out, just sometimes what might be considered a normal occurrence makes me chuckle and feel a little victorious for the day. Or for at least a couple seconds.

So for the first installment of a themed article on this themeless canvas: Things That Bug Me – My Cell Phone Battery.

I carry two cellphones. All day. Every day.

One is mine, it’s a Sony Walkman phone offered by AT&T (formerly Cingular, formerly Suncom, formerly some other crap). It’s my personal phone. Has a huge memory card, could also serve as a Walkman (fake iPod). But I don’t use it for that, I use it……………….wait for it……………..to call people. It has numbers on it. I dial them in a specific order. People answer. I talk to them. Or, in reverse, they call me. It rings. I answer. I talk to them. Done. That’s it. I like it. It works. It’s a phone. I’m very happy with it. It does what I need it to do. And it generally works like it’s supposed to.

The other, oh the other pile of crap, is my work phone. Supplied by my company. It’s a Verizon phone on that amazing network. I’ll give them a good coverage range, whatever, who doesn’t have that now. But it’s a Samsung Renown (SCH-u810). Which is actually Samsung-ese for (pile of crap).
Look, the image I got from Samsung online is even brown. Hmmmmmmmmm, how fitting. Anyways, due to recent downsizing at my company and changes in plans, and the fact that this is my second phone in a year through them, and blah blah blah – I can’t get a new phone from my company and Verizon until like January. Whatever. I’ll keep carrying around this piece of crap. Samsung and Verizon, can you hear me now? This phone is a pile of cow shit.

According to the specs online, this wonderful phone has "up to" (their words) 300 minutes of talk time, and "up to" 320 hours of idle time - from the standard battery. Quick math, 300 minutes / 60 minutes / hr = 5 hours, I mean, "up to" 5 hours of talk time on this battery. Before this rant continues, I must admit I have no problems with the idle time on this battery. I haven't timed it, or compared it to "up to" 320 hours - but it's plenty long enough. I don't have to charge it every other day................UNLESS............I talk on this phone. Because, Samsung is basically a big fat liar - I call bullshizer on 5 hours of talk time. I would estimate this phone's talk time on the standard battery to be about 45 minutes. If I'm talking on this phone, I can watch the battery dial go down as I'm talking - worse than watching my gas gauge in the Hemi.

So, to start the trend, Things That Bug Me - My Cell Phone Battery. Bullshizer on Samsung's 5 hours of talk time. Then, to top it all off, this phone has the worst, most annoying, warning-beep-my-battery-is-about-to-die sound. The worst. And, if I, heaven forbid, talk on this phone, I get to hear it often.

“I Know Poops”

2009-08-22T13:30:00.001-04:00

Ok. That’s not a fair title. I know……….my…………poops. Catchy enough title for today? I figured I’d bust out early in my blog career with a subject that could seem to be, ummmmm, borderline TMI. I see what you did there.

Anyways, after the age of about [insert age you stop shitting in your pants], you basically see every single shit you ever take. Don’t act like you just wipe and walk away. You know you look too as you’re turning to flush. So, it’s a fair assessment. I know my poops. And if you ask anyone that knows me, I take a lot of them. Well, semantically speaking, I leave a lot of them. Unless of course you were sitting with me before I moved to the bathroom, so technically I would be taking my crap away from you. But then, alas, semantically I would still be leaving it in the plumbing.

The point is that I’m well studied in my poops. We’ve all seen the funny T-shirt, or funny e-mail forward, that gives humorous names for poops. I could bite off that list and give a similar list, and maybe that’s where you thought this post was going. But I’m more focused on my intimate knowledge of my specific poops.

There’s the Sunday morning after the big Saturday night, apparently I digested sulfur in some form, poop.

There’s the hot wing, oh my God it still hurts on the way out, poop.

There’s the corn……..self explanatory.

There’s the Tuesday morning after Monday Night Football, you drank too much cheap light beer with a bad CO2 setting at a dive bar, holy crap it’s green, poop.

There’s the lactose intolerant, had too much milk and cheese, more like a stopper plug that when removed simply turns into something akin to pouring coffee, poop.

There’s the ate a lot of fatty red meat, oh I see where they get the phrase "what crawled up your ass and died", poop.

I could go on and on. Hey, this is borderline TMI, right? But the point is, I know my poops. And through 30+ years of study, I pretty much have a nickname and knowledge of all of them.

[insert that movie preview super deep voice guy again, two posts in a row, I apparently have a thing for him] UNTIL NOW!!!!!!

Recently, my wife, was out of town for a week. She’s a teacher, and dammit if she doesn’t get paid for 12 months a year and only work for 9! She spent some of her hard earned summer off on the road visiting family. Well, I’m all grown up now – so wife out of town doesn’t mean what it used to! Half kidding, but no more drinking all week, taking a hangover day off work, no more dinners at Hooters, or even (gasp) trips to the local strip club. Note, I live in VA, so they’re more like bikini clubs. Don’t judge me. Anyways……….my point here wasn’t to get into my behavior with the honey out of town. It was that not only did I decide I wasn’t going to be an immature asshole with her out of town, I wasn’t going to spend a ton of money. Which, as many of you can agree I’m sure, wife out of town : immature asshole : spending, is a fairly proportionally equivalent ratio. So this time, not only was I not going to be a 30ish year old guy trying to relive some college drinking stories and be a total douchebag for a week, I was going to be well behaved financially all around for the week.

Then, I took the financial challenge to a slightly different level. I was going to eat right for the week too. (financial driver here suggested no work lunches out) Well, if any of you know me, you know I don’t just sort of do something. If I’m into it, I really do it. So, this little self-mini-challenge went big. Save money for a week. Eat on pennies from the grocery store with 21 carefully planned meals for the week. And eat right. Like, Men’s Health magazine right.

Well, before you think I’ve gone too far off task. I hope to not make too many assumptions about the clarity with which I write, or the forethought of any of my reader(s) – but I hope you see where this is going. So I ate well, REAL WELL for a week. Salads, wheat bread, fish, wheat pasta, fruit, veggies, you name it. Let’s just say, by about day 3 of the week, when it had a couple days of eating perfectly to settle through my system, I was very scared. I don’t know who was sneaking behind me where I was sitting in the bathroom and taking a shit in the toilet behind me when it felt like I was actually shitting……but that sure as hell wasn’t my poop in the toilet for a couple days. I know it wasn’t, because I know my poops.

Post Number One. The Welcome post didn’t count.

2009-08-21T09:25:00.002-04:00

So I have this list of things started that I want to talk about. It’s only got about 20 things on it. That’s a shame. It’s just the crap I could think of to jot down when I decided I was going to start a blog. I wish I’d more formally started this list months, years, ago. It would be scary. I’ve always thought, man, if I *did* have a newspaper column, or a blog, I’d definitely write about *that*. Usually followed by, “man, people are gonna think you’re disturbed.”

Anyways, the first ~20 posts will be from this list, for the most part. They just happen to be the last, most recent, things I’ve thought about and decided it was worth typing about. Exception alert! I guess if I think of something else to write about in between the next 20 posts, I’m allowed to insert that. Or post them in whatever order I want. Wait, you don’t know what’s on the list, or what order they’re in. So, for all you know, the next 20 posts you read, should you choose to come back that many times, are the 20 things from my pre-blog list of things to talk about? I like commas.

So here goes. I play some online games. Ok, I’m lying to you already. I play one. I’ve been known to dabble in some World of Warcraft. The definition of the word “dabble” can be left up for debate as the amount of time spent on said game is sometimes a disagreeable topic with Mrs. HokieJayBee. She just doesn’t understand the heroin-like attributes of a video game. I mean….I followed my brother into this game a couple years ago, in part to bond with him through an online game portal, and also in part to break myself off of online poker. Warcraft is $15 per month and much cheaper than a bad streak at poker. I kind of feel like Post Number One is taking on the look of a confessional to my addictive behavior…..

But I digress…..or not. Isn’t admitting addiction like step 1? Hi, my name’s HokieJayBee and I play Warcraft. The reason *that fucking game*, as it’s known around my house sometimes, even came up here today was because it’s involved in a story for one of the reasons I’m here writing in the first place. An inner-working, a view into the Fear-and-Loathing-in-Las-Vegas, you know the ether scene, that is my brain sometimes. Something that I find rather near humorous, that I finally have a real life situation to relate it to.

In that game, say during a furious boss fight, or hectic player-vs-player situation, you’ll be grouped in a party with your fellow players who are trying to accomplish the same goal. [[fellow Warcraft players have just fallen out of their seat laughing at the Layman’s terminology explanation of that, what I mean is, “when you’re raiding or in a BG, and you’re using chat not vent”]] But the emphasis of the sentence should be on the furious or hectic part, because people are typing frenetically and frantically sometimes. Spelling and grammar are not paramount at times like this, so those police usually won’t appear, just get your message across. But one thing that I see funny that happens all the time, where the typing police might pay a visit, is spacebarfail. Like, someone is typing notes or instructions to you so frantically; it looks like, “roguefromfarm sapped”, or “incmagetower”. Which means, “there’s an enemy player who is a rogue coming from the base at the farm, crap he incapacitated me for 10 seconds”, or “I am guarding our base at the mage tower, there are enemy combatants heading here, I will need help to defend our base”. Anyways, you get the point. Spacebarfail. At least on my server and with the people I run with, spacebarfail is a you’re-going-to-get-made-fun-of type of offense. Like, is typing “rogue from farm” so much longer than “roguefromfarm”? Considering the possible delayed understanding of your fellow combatants, and the possibility that you might have to type more, or again, to explain what you meant? Did you really save time?

And for the longest time, spacebarfail was just something I encountered in the game world. [[insert that movie preview guy voice]] ……UNTIL NOW.

I have found spacebarfail in the real world, and I’ve found it in spoken form. There’s a Chinese restaurant near my office where I commonly get a beef with broccoli lunch special with wonton soup and an egg roll. Commonly = once every 2 weeks ish. But enough that I’m in there enough to know them and their establishment. Soooooo, I’m sitting in there the other day, waiting on my order to be ready, and I hear something that I’ve heard in there thousands of times, only now I heard it differently and laughed. The kid they have answering the phone has verbal spacebarfail. Of course, at the risk of being borderline uncouth, I know his accent doesn’t help and English is probably his (minimum) second language, but for my brain’s purposes he’s got verbal spacebarfail. So disclaimer this right out, I’m not anti-Asian American. Just pointing out something that’s funny to me because of rushed speech, ethnicity has nothing to do with it.

What he’s saying, in purest English form, were he to be speaking in perfect English: “You have reached Hong Kong House, how may I help you?”

What he’s trying to say, in his translational English, word for word: “Hong Kong House, may I help you?”

What he’s really saying, literally that you can hear in the dining room: “Honkonhowhehyou?”

Verbal spacebarfail people. And now, not only do I owe you 5 minutes of your life for the time you spent just now reading this......but now you're going to hear verbal spacebarfail out in the real world and laugh at someone. I just hope it's not too much an inopportune time for laughter.

Welcome.

2009-08-20T12:52:00.000-04:00

Well hai. Welcome to my blog. I guess I’ve avoided it long enough. I’ve been an avid blog reader for a long time, to the point of guest spotting on some people’s blogs occasionally. I have some good friends I know that write blogs. My blogroll that I read on a day-to-day basis is a pretty extensive list, if I have the time. And I’m interested in so many subjects it would be tough to list them here. So, I'm going to write one with no subject. Just a view into the inner-circle of my brain waves.

Anyways, that’s a nice long beginning to a really boring story you don’t want to read. So I’ll save us both the trouble and not write it. The point is that I’ve many times thought I should write my own blog. But I never did because I always found a reason….

*no one will read it* [Who cares if no one ever reads it, that’s not why I should write, right? I should write it to get thoughts down on (virtual) paper. It could be therapeutic to write, right?]

*you won’t get anything/any notoriety out of it* [Who cares. It’s not like Random House Publishing is scouring the internet reading blogs to find great writers and they’re going to find yours and suddenly write to you and say, “Hey, you write good. Write books for us.” Please tell me you caught that.]

*I don’t have a theme* [See, this one kept sticking me. What would I write about? I always felt like I have to have a theme. Like there’s blog rules or blog police. Or people who might stumble on it would only stumble on, and maybe stay, because of a certain theme. Well I don’t have a theme. And I’m going to write about anything I damn well please. And you’re going to like it. Or not. And that’s ok.]

*what will you call it?* [I’m currently living with the inner struggle to not make a joke about how this first entry is developing a theme, seemingly instantaneously after saying I don’t have a theme……but…..who cares what I call it? The name might change all the time. It might not have a good name. Again, who cares? It doesn’t have to be flashy or catchy. Because, see bullets one and two above, it’s not like I’m trying to attract readers or notoriety.]

*what if people don’t find you funny?* [Gasp, what if I’m not funny? Hrrrmph, maybe every entry won’t be of comedic value. There might be a serious entry occasionally.]

*what if you run out of stuff to talk about?* [ummm, then you stop writing on the blog. Although I highly doubt this will ever be the case. If you know me, you know I like to argue, I mean talk, about anything. I know I have a list of about 20 things to write my first posts about. Maybe I’ll post one every day. Maybe every other day. Maybe I’ll post a bunch in advance and let the site post them on schedule. Theme alert: who cares?]

Well, it seems I always have a [bracket-of-excuse-elimination] available for any reason to not write my own blog. So, here we sit. Nice to meet you. If you haven’t left yet, welcome to my blog. I’ll start off with a snazzy name for the blog. How about, “Everyday Normal Guy”. Too normal. I'm certain if you read this blog on the regular you'll see that the inner-workings of my pretty little head are not normal. In fact, whether in an attempt for comedy or not, I guarantee I'll be toeing the line of too much information. "Borderline TMI". Now I need a good subtitle. Rantings and Ravings, Trials and Tribulations…..doesn’t need to be fancy. Just some new guy meddling in the blogosphere.