ever'body seen a leprechaun say yeah! YEAH-YUH!

I wish I were clever enough to make this stuff up.
but I'm not. you need to get yourself over to ifilm.com immediately if not sooner and watch this video. it is work safe. no swear words. it's a news program from alabama. I think local news is retardo, but sometimes they come up with some genius. here's the address, in case the link doesn't come through. http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2714833

I think i'm related to the one guy w/ the flute. in the body armor. the one with the Irish grandfather? that guy.

ever'body seen a leprechaun say yeah!
YEAH-YUH!

taking sketchy pervyness to a whole new level (not me); plus, did you make out?

so I work at an office that's fairly standard in my office experience. there's the usual cute receptionist girl at the front desk; sales guys talking on their gay star trek earpieces ("buy buy! sell sell sell!"); the shady corporate real estate guy I run into down at the bar sometimes (not wearing his wedding ring, hitting on girls); the regular guy that swings by my office to talk about his kid, his family, football; and the hot women from the HR staffing company (alas, uninterested in me in anything but a professional capacity).

there's also the older creepy perv, an older character common in any office environment. but this guy has taken old creepy perv to a whole new level. now, i'm no spring chicken at 32, but this OCP is a good 2x my age if he's a day. here's what happened:
I walk up to the front desk at about 1530 and the girl is answering the phones (as per usual), and the creepy perv is handing her a small shotglass of clear liquid (definitely not as per usual). has to be water, because what else could it be? he gives me a funny look and scuttles away, and the girl looks at me and says, "don't worry, i'm not drinking it." I look confused because she says, "really, i'm not; I don't drink at work." I said, "was that booze?" she says, yeah, tequila, he has a bar in his office and he thinks i like to drink, so he brings me a shot EVERY DAY. all I could say to her was "ooooookay. that's disturbing."

WTF? brings you a shot of booze? just to get you through the day? what's next, he's going to ask you to sit on his lap? ugh, so creepy.

and also...
i'm on the phone with a close friend, catching up. I ask if he's got any ladies, or any prospects. he says, well, kind of - I went on a date last night but she drinks too much. me: huh? he says, she told me a story about how she got so drunk last weekend in [unnamed city] that she fell on her face, then she went out and kept drinking.
Me: wow, sounds like a keeper. great story to tell on a first date, btw. did you make out?
him: no, she still has a couple scabs on her face from where she ate shit.

ouch! double ouch! love you too!
thanks for reading.

is that hot?

ahh, can we get back to some pithy social commentary? no? okay.
what about some good old-fashioned criticism? yeah? super.

is a statue of a pregnant Britney Spears bent over on all fours, on a bearskin rug, with the baby coming out of, her, ahh, babymaker, hot? is it? the article says the baby is "coming out the other end." nicely put. you can't see it from this angle, but you can imagine K-Fed getting ready to make a play on the ball, as it were, and catch the little tyke on his exit. maybe you can't imagine it. I dunno.

the sculptor claims that this is a pro-life image. I don't see that, but the bear looks pissed he got turned into a rug.

going under the knife - 17 April (mark your calendar)

the fat kid (me) scheduled surgery on his lower back (17 April! mark your calendar!). oh, pardon me, "low back". when you talk about these things all the time you leave out the "-er". very official sounding.
just in case you thought a "right L4-5 microdiskectomy" was a routine procedure, allow me to reproduce part of my surgical consent form. It lists no fewer than 18 potential risks and complications related to this outpatient procedure. Some highlights (numbers correspond to where they appear in the actual list on the form):

2) recurrent herniation [not so bad, all things considered.]

5) nerve root injury resulting in temporary or permanent loss of function, causing pain, numbness, and/or weakness [now you have my attention]

6) paralysis resulting in loss of all lower extremity function as well as loss of bowel and/or bladder function, and/or sexual function [item 6 is worse than item 18]

7) persistent or increased pain

10) disc degeneration resulting in chronic back pain which may require spinal fusion

11) instability, causing excessive motion in spine, resulting in pain that may require spinal fusion

14) pneumonia [from the anesthetic]

16) pulmonary embolus [this would cause paralysis or brain damage, or #18]

17) stroke

18) death [yikes!]

on the upside, the doc says that none of these things is likely. I was thinking about it, and I realized it's easy to fret about the probability that bad things might happen. you could get hit by a car on your way to work, fall down some stairs, get dumped on valentine's day, whatever. does no good to worry about it.
the best news about the whole deal: I might get better.

surgery details:

• operation lasts about 90 minutes.
• I go home the same day. take a week off of work, spend time playing xbox, reading, practicing guitar, watching movies.
  
• pt starts 4-7 days after surgery
• after 8 weeks they expect I'll be 90% healed. just can't run.
  

reprinted without permission

this is a cartoon by David Rees.
it is reprinted without permission, but I doubt anyone will notice. I didn't hear about David Rees until he started getting his cartoon printed in Rolling Stone.
You can go and visit his website to learn more about his other cartoons, his causes and commitments, and his public engagements. I also encourage you to read his essay on the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; it is fascinating.
in the mean time, just embrace the hell out of this little gem.

dispatch from norcal

trying an email post, since my intrepid computer system in the frozen north can't seem to stay connected to the blog server. or something. you don't care.
insight from this week:

• response from this weeks earlier post about "getting your ex back" was good. I aim to please. I heart your feedback. it's weird, because there are a lot of other posts that I thought were much more funny than that one. but I just work here. and take naps.
  
• "red eye" is a crap movie.
  
• newest harry potter movie is pretty good.
  
• not swearing for lent is going okay. I have to give $2 to charity every time I stumble. I'm up to $72 so far. I figure I'll just cut the church a check when I get to $100 and then cut another one when lent is over. there was some disagreement between a friend and I about whether or not it was fair to give up swearing, since I shouldn't be doing that anyway. he's a catholic, and we're never going to see eye to eye anyhow, but I said it was a vice, so it was a great thing to give up. he said, not much of a sacrifice. I said, yeah, then you try it. he gave up sweets.
  
• JJ Redick and Co. got bounced out of the ncaa tournament by LSU. the man guarding him was precisely the type of player he'll have to compete against in the NBA. he might find his niche shooting the ball, but I doubt it. oh well. Duke will have to get by with another 3 or 4 McDonald's all-americans next year. it helps being on tv 30 times, too. oh, and having your coach in those chevy ads that run every 14 seconds. i think they'll be okay.
  

that's all I have for now. i've been out of town on business all week. so nothing funny has happened. at least, nothing I can write about yet. i'll have something for you next week. probably.

it's that easy: get back with your ex!

every now and then I discover something so superb, so delicious, and so damn AWFUL that I have to post it on the blog for everyone to see. immediately if not sooner.

today's little gem comes from exback.com, which is a website devoted to "getting back" your ex-boyfriend or -girlfriend. full disclosure: I was in a relationship a while ago and I was bummed when it didn't work out. I did some venting on the interweb, but I never thought to search for ways to "get her back." I guess i just wasn't brokenhearted enough. or maybe I realized, deep down, that as much as I liked her she wasn't the right girl for me. probably a little of both. moving on, let's take a closer look at this website and its proven techniques...

ignoring the sales stuff at the top, let's get to the section that says:
"Please don't do any of this..."

The scary thing is that the natural reaction people have when they try to get back together with their ex is actually pushing their ex's further away... even though it seems like the right thing to do!

Have you tried any of the following to get your ex back:

• Telling your ex you love them over and over? [no. I told them I was in love with someone else, but that didn't work, either.]
  
  
• Apologizing and swearing that things will be different from now on? [apologizing? different? how about, promising that things will be the same, but better?]
  
  
• Using money, kids, jealousy, or some other kind of manipulative leverage to "force" them to come back? [using money is what pimps do. so yes, I have done that.]
  
  
• Acting depressed so that your ex will feel bad for you and come back? [acting depressed? who was acting?]
  
  
• Giving your ex reassurance that you have changed so they should try again? [if by "changed" you mean "gotten fat because I have been drinking heavily" then yeah, for sure.]
  
  
• Trying to reason and argue with them about why they should give the relationship another chance? [no, I have never tried to reason w/ a woman, because that is like trying to smell the color blue: impossible, and crazy.]
  

The thing goes on and on about how to get back with your ex and repair your relationship. It could be really good, but there's no way I'm going to put $24 in this guy's pocket.
this is his PPS to the whole thing:

P. P. S. Don't be frustrated and confused for another day. Just CLICK HERE to get started now.

yeah, no more frustration and confusion in relationships for only $24? cheap at twice the price! sign me up!

shorter entries: good; more pictures: gooder

Big weekend. I celebrated St. Patrick's day by watching basketball and drinking a lot of beer. None of it was green. I also ate some corned beef (not green), fish and chips (not green), and mexican food (you get the idea). Hooray, st. pat's. saturday and sunday were pretty slow. I really need to get out more. I also practiced guitar (still sucking!) and read some books.

On the Fire Dick Vitale front, he's still not fired, and he's still retardo.

I wish I had a good story about text vs. subtext because I've been thinking about it a lot lately. but i don't.

unrelated: sometimes things don't go my way. but sometimes they do.
I have tattoos on my arms (it's just a skin picture!) to remind me of this, but it's too easy to focus on the negative. you have to give the negative and the positive equal weight. if i do that, I realize that things have gone right for me in every measurable way except one: I'm not dating anyone right now and I'm bored. so I focus on all the other things that go right, and try not to let it bug me. i'm not even looking to date anyone right now. i just like the distraction. it's fun.

in roommate news, we got a new guy. he's cool. and I think he'll pay his bills on time, which I appreciate.
more later.

what has two thumbs and kicks ass?!?? THESE GUYS!!!; and so much more

yeah it's been a busy week at GJAW.
I get these blog ideas but then I have too much paper to push and I can't get to it. first, the latest picture. I am much too proud of it, but there you go. you have to take your laughs where you can get them, I guess.

I got pummeled in a sparring match on monday. bloody nose, scrapes on my forehead, sore ribs. I am not good at boxing. at all. it was kind of depressing. it IS kind of depressing. God humbles the proud, but did I have to take a beating? I guess so.

while I was at the gym, I heard "i'm in luv wit a stripper". yes, that is how it is spelled. I read it in rolling stone yesterday. and yes, that's the name of a new song by T-Pain. it's all over power 106 (crap radio station in so cal) and I think the album dropped already. ata kid, T-Pain. If you have not heard this song, please check it out immediately. This guy is in love wit a stripper, yo. It's so bad it's good. I bought the 12" single (on vinyl). two copies. (only $3.50 each!)

tattoos: it's just a skin picture. really, it's not a big deal. if you see some kook with words where his eyebrows should be, just say to yourself, damn, that guy needs therapy. the same thing you'd say if you saw somebody with a really gnarly facelift, as when you blink and your ears move.

I was going to write an entire blog entry about a woman who lost her son Iraq to an IED. he was killed with 8 other marines when they were riding in their humvee. She was on the front the provincial OC Register's Life or Local section. I forget which. here's the thing: this poor mom, she memorialized the soldiers by getting her new Hummer H2 painted with their pictures. on the whole thing, front, back, both sides, top. she said (paraphrasing) "my favorite part is where it shows them in heaven." let's explore this thought process a little bit...

1. son and 8 of his friends dies in awful, miserable country, thousands of miles from home/girlfriend/cheeseburgers/etc. [this is awful; I support the troops by suggesting they be brought home YESTERDAY, but we can't, because of our dependence on foreign oil, about which see #3, below]
   
2. mom grieves [so far, I got it]
3. Mom decides that painting her [huge, gas guzzling] SUV is best way to remember their sacrifice. [what. the f*ck. are you talking about. not sure how she got from step two to step 3. but I don't have kids, either. my mom has done this kind of stuff, and she is crazy for sure.]
   

St. Patrick's day is tomorrow. I took the day off. I don't get any work done that day, anyway. Here's some toasts you can try out as you raise a glass:

• May your house be too small to hold all your friends (got that from gramps)
• May those that love us, love us. And for those that do not love us, may God turn their hearts. And if he cannot turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so that we may know them by their limping (that from the interweb a couple years ago)
• Here's to old, new, and future friends (it's good to plan ahead)
  

some people are big fans of this eye-contact-while-cheersing thing. I am not. it's awkward with guys, and with girls I feel like they want to bone me. turns out that most of the time they don't, but it's still a little awkward. a little.

you can put your NCAAA tournament bracket on the list of things I don't care to hear about, directly below your fantasy football team, but above your rotisserie league team. I do like to talk about the individual games, though. I like Monmouth to beat Villanova. (for real.)

re: guitar playing - I suck spectacularly. and my fingers hurt. on the upside, if I practice for 2 years I probably won't be in danger of taking a beating (unlike my other hobby, boxing, about which see above).

this could have been two blogs, but what the hell? I'll revisit it later. thanks for reading.

i'm out of town all week next week and can't post. I'll be back on Monday, 27 March.

new(ish) music, and I now suck at playing guitar

One of the roommates works for a music distributor. He gets a lot of free music, and nearly all of it is crap. Every now and then he'll loan me a cd to listen to, or, rarely, give me one. When he does, it's up to me to put it on the ipid, play it at home, or listen in the car. Sometimes he gets stuff before it breaks, and I ignore it (Matisyahu was on my floor for 3 months before he realized I never listened to it and he took it back). Other times he'll have a choice between two cd's at work, such as Fall Out Boy and, umm, The Lashes, and he'll grab the Lashes cd. bust.

But every now and then he comes home with something really good. Late last year it was Andrew Bird and and album called The Mysterious Production of Eggs. If you like Bright Eyes, or the Decemberists, or Sufjan Stevens, then you'll dig Andrew Bird. He must be huge in the Netherlands, because he's doing a bunch of shows there and his manager is dutch. who knew?

more recently, the roommate brought home Panic! At the Disco, which was good but they're the indie-hipster band of the moment so that was easy. recently big in the UK and looking to break here in the US is Hard-Fi. if you like Bloc Party then you might like Hard-Fi. they're on Atlantic now, so i'm sure you'll hear about them fairly soon.

in other news, my friend sam sold me his old guitar. This is a great opportunity to suck at something. haven't had a chance to do that recently (relationships excepted), so i'm looking forward to it. sort of. the guitar sounds great. I do not. i tried to get it to make beautiful noises last night. no luck.
thanks for reading.

the ONLY thing that would make that picture any better...

... is if it had Chuck Norris in it.
I think that's him in the background, in the serape.
I mean it.

long on pictures, short on content; plus, is it fun to be your ex's buddy?

I have been recently jealous of images posted on other blogs. and then somebody sent me a picture of a naked david hasselhoff w/ two little shar pei puppies, one in his lap to cover up his junk. i refuse to post it; resolution was poor, but it was definitely him. I hear he's huge in germany. if you know what I mean. and I think you do.

I wanted to post my desktop picture so that you can see how we do it here at GJAW. it's pc, it's big 80's, and it's easily the sweetest interweb photo i've ever gotten. best part is I've only gotten it a couple of times. it's a relative rarity. and resolution is good. I invite you to send it to all your friends. I'd put my initials in the corner, but I have no idea where it came from, and I can't take credit for it.

in other news, is it fun to be your ex's buddy? I'm saying, umm, no. I can't do it. I have had two friends that were really good at it. one turned out to be gay, and the other is just very sensitive. me, I can't do it. if you can, more power to you. I figure, if you could be buddies then why break up in the first place? in my case (pun intended - HONK!) you get dumped because you put too much pressure on the relationship and keep having freakouts. nicely done. that's not a good foundation for buddy-ness. it also depends on the girl. some girls, they heart being buddies. I think my ex would loooove to be buddies.

somehow that makes the breakup suck even worse.

pointless commentary: Dick Vitale still gets a paycheck

I read that Dick Vitale is on the ballot for the Basketball HOF.
(begging your pardon, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.)

I'm unclear exactly what The Dick's contribution to basketball has been. He is bland, witless, vague, and utterly useless as an announcer. Maybe he was a better coach, although if he were, he would probably still be coaching. Instead, he found a niche for himself as a rah-rah hoops announcer, where ability is less important than bombastic tone. Fortunately there is room in the ESPN studio for guys like Jay Bilas, who isn't afraid to describe game action in measured tones. DickyV just screams cliches and catchphrases and adds nothing. For this he gets nominated to the HOF? How does that happen? The guy might know a lot about basketball, but we'll never know. It's too much "awesome, baby!" and "diaper DANDY!!". tedious.

for an example of saying nothing about something, see the following articles "written" by dick vitale.
http://espn.go.com/dickvitale/060301VitaleonAssistantCoaches.html
http://espn.go.com/dickvitale/060303VitaleRoundballtalk.html

I really liked the one on assitant coaches that were former head coaches. Dicky V always shills for assistants to get head coaching jobs at new places because he got fired once and it sucked for him. What he doesn't do is identify coaches that are doing a bad job and need to move on. Everyone always does a great job in dickyland. Where are these new jobs going to come from? Isn't somebody doing a bad job somewhere? we'll never know.

back, but still mediocre; lenten commitments: son of a b!

hello faithful readers. I have not rewarded your vigilance with an update in quite some time. I just haven't felt like it. the general malaise that came over me 3 weeks ago still lingers. sure i've had a chance to shake it off. sort of. but it's tougher than I thought. these things happen, etc. and so forth.

I watched most of a carolina/duke basketball game and it was great because Duke lost. at home. dick vitale was so overblown with his superlatives that I thought his fat head was going to go supernova and black hole all at once: explode, and then collapse in on itself because of its tremendous mass. the black hole would have wiped out Cameron Indoor Arena, a nice bonus.

but it didn't happen. if it had, you probably would have heard about it. probably. Duke dropped all the way to number 3 in the polls after they lost 2 games in one week. Fairly generous, if you consider that other teams might have dropped out of the top 10. However, I felt it was fair, because Duke was very good all year. Not the best team in the country (hellooooo, UCONN!), but very good.

the olympics were on. I didn't watch much. there was some curling. and some figure skating. and that skier that liked to party didn't do well. he came off as kind of a jerk, but i never met the guy, so who knows? he probably just doesn't care about being on TV. he obviously doesn't care about doing well at his job, since he's been sucknutsass all year on the world cup circuit. so he was sucknutass at the olympics. who cares? maybe nike and atomic. and the other skiers that know they can beat him every week, they care a lot.

re: lent, per a suggestion from a friend, I am giving up swearing. even my tried and true swear words I used when I was a more hard-core christian (b**** and a**). i've let them all go. it took me all of 20 minutes this morning to stumble, so this is going to be a bit more work than I anticipated. but I'm working on it. I was going to give up my only other serious vice, booze, but st. patrick's day is coming up. some things even I can't do.