I was walking along the other day and saw a boyfriend and girlfriend speaking to one another. I have no idea what they were talking about, but as I walked by I heard her say to him, "Why wouldn't you ask me first?" Classic last words. I, like many other boyfriends, at one point or another have been asked this age old question many times. So for the ladies, this is why we don't ask you first…WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER.
Why would I ask you a question that I know will inevitably lead to your telling me "No"? Now, I'm no relationship guru but let's consider the alternatives.
Example: Boyfriend goes out for drinks after work without asking girlfriend first.
1. They argue about why he didn't ask first. Such is the case with what I witnessed the other day.
2. Boyfriend asks and girlfriend says no. They then argue about why not.
3. Girlfriend says yes, and then they argue about why boyfriend got home so late.
4. Girlfriend says yes, and then they argue the next day because boyfriend is too hung over to be useful.
5. Girlfriend says yes, and then they argue about why she's never allowed to go out with the girls.
6. Girlfriend says yes, and then asks for an engagement ring. Game over.
Do you see where I'm going with this - By not asking, the argument stays within the realm of why didn't we ask first. If we ask, this opens up a whole can of alternative worms, and dudes can't predict what direction the alternative will go in. So, in order to avoid the unknown we don't ask, and the sure shot discussion is why we didn't ask.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
I Write The Blogs
Folks that know me, know I am a proud member of the GOP. I was asked if I was going to write about politics or Johnny's loss. The answer? Nope - not going to do it, that's what we're going to do. Three things I will never try to change someone else's mind on - politics, religion, and sexual orientation. Why? Those are tough subjects that require really long conversations and I don't feel like talking to the same person for that long. No one would interest me that much to keep me entertained for the length of time it would take to try and change their mind. And trust me, I can be very persuasive. Once, I talked Scooter into putting some of Arby's Horsey sauce on his Hot Ham and Swiss melt - remember that bro, no regrets right? My man's been on the Horsey Sauce band wagon ever since.
Congrats to Obama, and congrats to the country for witnessing history in the making. I don't dislike the guy - his policies just didn't fall in line with mine. Is it the end of the world? No. Is it the end of America? Not even close. But folks on the "Change Machine", spare me. And please avoid using quotes from the movie Goonies, like "It's our time!" Let's keep one major fact in mind - the man is a politician. Politicians lie. That's what they do (including Johnny). Obama is not some savior that is going to lead us to changing the world. And he's not going to lead us to the promise land. How do I know? Because we're already here - that's why people are still coming to this country. Don't like the policies, you can leave. America is like employment - it is completely voluntary, you can leave whenever you like. Think the grass is greener in Canada - go, just bring your I.D. For those of you that are on the whole Obama Revolution kick - There is no revolution. The Revolution was a couple of years back, on July 4th. We won. Oh, and at the end of his 4 or 8 years, we will still be the most hated country in the world...why? Because everyone hates numero uno. Nobody ever hates the guy in the middle of the pack. Am I right or am I right?
Think about it, it's easy to hate the rich guy - he's number one. How about we try hating the 95% of Americans that fall into the middle class for not working hard enough to be the rich guy? If I were running for office that would be my platform -95% of Americans make less than $200,000, step it up middlers - be Ameri-CANS not Ameri-CAN'Ts. See, I'm an Ameri-CAN. That's why I write this blog. You come here, you like what you see, you click, I make some coin. That's me trying to be the rich guy. I am simply trying to put the bop in the bop-shoe-op-shoe-op.
Congrats to Obama, and congrats to the country for witnessing history in the making. I don't dislike the guy - his policies just didn't fall in line with mine. Is it the end of the world? No. Is it the end of America? Not even close. But folks on the "Change Machine", spare me. And please avoid using quotes from the movie Goonies, like "It's our time!" Let's keep one major fact in mind - the man is a politician. Politicians lie. That's what they do (including Johnny). Obama is not some savior that is going to lead us to changing the world. And he's not going to lead us to the promise land. How do I know? Because we're already here - that's why people are still coming to this country. Don't like the policies, you can leave. America is like employment - it is completely voluntary, you can leave whenever you like. Think the grass is greener in Canada - go, just bring your I.D. For those of you that are on the whole Obama Revolution kick - There is no revolution. The Revolution was a couple of years back, on July 4th. We won. Oh, and at the end of his 4 or 8 years, we will still be the most hated country in the world...why? Because everyone hates numero uno. Nobody ever hates the guy in the middle of the pack. Am I right or am I right?
Think about it, it's easy to hate the rich guy - he's number one. How about we try hating the 95% of Americans that fall into the middle class for not working hard enough to be the rich guy? If I were running for office that would be my platform -95% of Americans make less than $200,000, step it up middlers - be Ameri-CANS not Ameri-CAN'Ts. See, I'm an Ameri-CAN. That's why I write this blog. You come here, you like what you see, you click, I make some coin. That's me trying to be the rich guy. I am simply trying to put the bop in the bop-shoe-op-shoe-op.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Let My Blog Open The Door
Are folks going through tough times? Sure, the economy, the pending election, unemployment, etc., are all factors that are hitting everyone in some way, shape, or form. But is my family in dire straits? You would think so when I discovered this weekend that my wife thinks we are trying to survive "The Great Depression II".
Over this past weekend we enjoyed a great meal from a hamburger joint called "Checkers" - this is the east coast version of "In-and-Out Burger", although nothing compares to the latter. In any case, after finishing our meal we had about 7 remaining ketchup packets, 1 sweet and sour dip, and a handful of napkins. Folks, I discovered my wife's dirty little secret. She has been hording these types of items from every take-out joint we frequent and uses these items in the future. What am I talking about? I'm trying to tell you that after hours, my wife takes these individual packets and opens them up and squirts them into our Heinz bottle, or our Sweet and Sour bottle. She stacks the napkins in our napkin drawer - soy sauce? Into the Kikkoman bottle.
Babe, sweetheart, my love - I'll be GD'd if I can't provide condiments for our family. I would like to renew our wedding vows, right here and now - "I promise to love you, cherish you, and provide for you - including condiments - until death do us part. If the sky were to fall tomorrow, and I need to stand in the unemployment line - I promise that if nothing else, we will be able to afford our own condiments without having to recycle Burger King brand ketchup, or McDonald's brand sweet and sour."
I never realized my wife was doing this until I grabbed an empty "Big Gulp" and was about to throw it out and she quickly grabbed it from me so that our son could use it for juice. Look, just because our Dell credit line has been revoked doesn't mean I need to wipe my face with a different logoed napkin each night at dinner, or drink my milk from a recycled 7-Eleven cup. So please, when we are done with these items, let's just throw them away. Or better yet, let's put them in one of those clothing drops and then claim them as charitable deductions for our 2008 taxes.
Over this past weekend we enjoyed a great meal from a hamburger joint called "Checkers" - this is the east coast version of "In-and-Out Burger", although nothing compares to the latter. In any case, after finishing our meal we had about 7 remaining ketchup packets, 1 sweet and sour dip, and a handful of napkins. Folks, I discovered my wife's dirty little secret. She has been hording these types of items from every take-out joint we frequent and uses these items in the future. What am I talking about? I'm trying to tell you that after hours, my wife takes these individual packets and opens them up and squirts them into our Heinz bottle, or our Sweet and Sour bottle. She stacks the napkins in our napkin drawer - soy sauce? Into the Kikkoman bottle.
Babe, sweetheart, my love - I'll be GD'd if I can't provide condiments for our family. I would like to renew our wedding vows, right here and now - "I promise to love you, cherish you, and provide for you - including condiments - until death do us part. If the sky were to fall tomorrow, and I need to stand in the unemployment line - I promise that if nothing else, we will be able to afford our own condiments without having to recycle Burger King brand ketchup, or McDonald's brand sweet and sour."
I never realized my wife was doing this until I grabbed an empty "Big Gulp" and was about to throw it out and she quickly grabbed it from me so that our son could use it for juice. Look, just because our Dell credit line has been revoked doesn't mean I need to wipe my face with a different logoed napkin each night at dinner, or drink my milk from a recycled 7-Eleven cup. So please, when we are done with these items, let's just throw them away. Or better yet, let's put them in one of those clothing drops and then claim them as charitable deductions for our 2008 taxes.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Big Bloggin
I usually try to take the easy way out of things. When I endeavor to accomplish a goal - my first thought is "there must be an easier way." Take religion for instance. I get my fill of preaches from a fanatic on the train each morning. He's loud enough that I can hear him over my iPod. But it's pretty cool listening to a preacher talking about JC with "Spread" by Outkast as the choir.
Once, I really did try going to church religiously - no pun intended. When I went to church I went during a time when the entire congregation was reading the Bible - a little bit each week with weekly goals so that within 3 months everyone was to have completed reading the entire book. I successfully met the first two weeks goals but found the Bible a rather difficult read. That's when I picked up "The Bible For Dummies" - google it, this book really exists and I own it.
The issue I ran into with "Dummies" is that it is twice as long as the Bible itself. My goal was not to read more, but to move along with the congregation as we read the entire Bible as a group. My solution - move my book mark in the Bible each week to make it appear as if I was reading the weekly segments and meeting those milestones, but instead listening to the train preacher during the morning commute to get my fill of Christianity.
Some of you might say that this doesn't count, or that I am a cheat or liar. And I would agree with you to a degree. But in my opinion the Bible is a series of short stories that serve as a guide on how we should lead our lives - and sometimes I chose to take the low road. And when it came to reading the "Good Book" I did the bad thing and cheated.
Once, I really did try going to church religiously - no pun intended. When I went to church I went during a time when the entire congregation was reading the Bible - a little bit each week with weekly goals so that within 3 months everyone was to have completed reading the entire book. I successfully met the first two weeks goals but found the Bible a rather difficult read. That's when I picked up "The Bible For Dummies" - google it, this book really exists and I own it.
The issue I ran into with "Dummies" is that it is twice as long as the Bible itself. My goal was not to read more, but to move along with the congregation as we read the entire Bible as a group. My solution - move my book mark in the Bible each week to make it appear as if I was reading the weekly segments and meeting those milestones, but instead listening to the train preacher during the morning commute to get my fill of Christianity.
Some of you might say that this doesn't count, or that I am a cheat or liar. And I would agree with you to a degree. But in my opinion the Bible is a series of short stories that serve as a guide on how we should lead our lives - and sometimes I chose to take the low road. And when it came to reading the "Good Book" I did the bad thing and cheated.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Another Blog in the Wall
The credit crisis is now affecting me. Unbelievable. When they said this crisis was going to affect everyone - I excluded myself from that pool of individuals. I don't like to lease things, but the one thing that I could rationalize was leasing our computer from Dell. We all know this technology essentially reinvents itself and doubles in capacity and speed every 18 months. So, owning this equipment would not make sense. We had a credit line with Dell Financial Services that would allow us to lease about 5 of these machines. Those were the good old days. I recently attempted to refresh our technology and turn in our two year old machine for a new one - which is faster and cheaper than our current machine.
Working with the Sales Representative we put the deal together and then he submitted the application to the finance people. My application for a new lease was declined. Do they know who I am? My credit score is good, we never missed a payment on the current machine - and even have it setup to auto draft each month from our checking account, and the new machine was going to be $10 cheaper per month. Somehow our line of credit went from a lot to zero. We no longer have a line of credit available through the financing arm of Dell. This is the kind of thing that really bothers me - how can several million bad credit folks ruin credit for the rest of us? How about simply reducing my line of credit by a third rather than completely wiping it out?
I basically thanked the Sales Rep in the nicest way I could - by telling him that we would be leasing an Apple and hung up.
Apple's are a rip-off. A similar machine to the Dell is 3 times as much and that does not include the investment in Apple software I would have to make. By the time we finished pricing this bad boy out I would need a second line of home equity - which of course is not available to me since we are in the middle of some crisis that involves the availability of credit.
I dislike people with poor credit scores. Have you no shame? My credit score might be the second most important thing to me since it dictates life. It basically allows you to buy a house, or a car, and in some instances it is used to determine if you are a good candidate for a job. The other interesting thing to note is that in order to develop a credit score, you have to have credit - but now people aren't getting credit so they can't develop a credit score. "If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?!"
Working with the Sales Representative we put the deal together and then he submitted the application to the finance people. My application for a new lease was declined. Do they know who I am? My credit score is good, we never missed a payment on the current machine - and even have it setup to auto draft each month from our checking account, and the new machine was going to be $10 cheaper per month. Somehow our line of credit went from a lot to zero. We no longer have a line of credit available through the financing arm of Dell. This is the kind of thing that really bothers me - how can several million bad credit folks ruin credit for the rest of us? How about simply reducing my line of credit by a third rather than completely wiping it out?
I basically thanked the Sales Rep in the nicest way I could - by telling him that we would be leasing an Apple and hung up.
Apple's are a rip-off. A similar machine to the Dell is 3 times as much and that does not include the investment in Apple software I would have to make. By the time we finished pricing this bad boy out I would need a second line of home equity - which of course is not available to me since we are in the middle of some crisis that involves the availability of credit.
I dislike people with poor credit scores. Have you no shame? My credit score might be the second most important thing to me since it dictates life. It basically allows you to buy a house, or a car, and in some instances it is used to determine if you are a good candidate for a job. The other interesting thing to note is that in order to develop a credit score, you have to have credit - but now people aren't getting credit so they can't develop a credit score. "If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?!"
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
A Blog to a Kill
Me lady is in court today - as a juror. This leaves the kids under my watchful hawk eye. It also gives me time to opine on daytime television. I have been trying to think about how to put this gently so as not to offend too many of the readers of The Daily "Gospel" - that's the nickname of The Daily Blog Blog, tell your friends. Daytime television...it is for idiots.
How did I reach this conclusion? Well, I knew I hit rock bottom when flipping through the channels and some dude was helping a girl "get fashionable" and commented "that he was soooo jealous of her porcelain skin, OMG." Bro, are you a eunuch (google it)? Before hitting rock bottom my morning started out with the Today Show on NBC. Before 9am I could stand the show - it wasn't great but it was background noise with some legitimate news mingled in. Then the show went 100% female. I connected with 0% of what was said after 9am - except that part about men finding red to be the most attractive color on a woman. I wasn't totally convinced until they showed Kelly LeBrock dancing in red from the movie "The Woman in Red", and I was convinced (for the dudes reading this, YouTube it - no regrets).
"The View", this show will set women back 20-25 years by my estimates. The View "is ABC Daytime's morning chatfest, featuring a team of dynamic women of different ages, experiences and backgrounds discussing the most exciting events of the day." Elisabeth Hasselbeck recapped about her time on the campaign trail with Sarah Palin which stirred up the other exciting co-hosts since Elisabeth is the lone Republican on the show. Then everyone got a "Vote" t-shirt that was designed by Hiho Batik which retails for $38. I don't know who this Hiho Batik person is, but me lady showed me how to iron decals onto t-shirts when she was designing "onesies" for the dudette (our daughter). Total cost - $3. You can purchase one of these designer MunsOnsies or a $3 "Vote" t-shirt at our eBay store located here: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/wonderboyjack_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZQQ_sopZ12
How did I reach this conclusion? Well, I knew I hit rock bottom when flipping through the channels and some dude was helping a girl "get fashionable" and commented "that he was soooo jealous of her porcelain skin, OMG." Bro, are you a eunuch (google it)? Before hitting rock bottom my morning started out with the Today Show on NBC. Before 9am I could stand the show - it wasn't great but it was background noise with some legitimate news mingled in. Then the show went 100% female. I connected with 0% of what was said after 9am - except that part about men finding red to be the most attractive color on a woman. I wasn't totally convinced until they showed Kelly LeBrock dancing in red from the movie "The Woman in Red", and I was convinced (for the dudes reading this, YouTube it - no regrets).
"The View", this show will set women back 20-25 years by my estimates. The View "is ABC Daytime's morning chatfest, featuring a team of dynamic women of different ages, experiences and backgrounds discussing the most exciting events of the day." Elisabeth Hasselbeck recapped about her time on the campaign trail with Sarah Palin which stirred up the other exciting co-hosts since Elisabeth is the lone Republican on the show. Then everyone got a "Vote" t-shirt that was designed by Hiho Batik which retails for $38. I don't know who this Hiho Batik person is, but me lady showed me how to iron decals onto t-shirts when she was designing "onesies" for the dudette (our daughter). Total cost - $3. You can purchase one of these designer MunsOnsies or a $3 "Vote" t-shirt at our eBay store located here: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/wonderboyjack_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZQQ_sopZ12
Monday, October 27, 2008
Blog Control to Major Tom
Did you know that the folks that are responsible for driving trains are referred to as "engineers"? This might be the most outrageous use of the word engineer. These people are called engineers because they can read traffic signals, talk on a CB, and move a joystick backwards and forwards to control a train? If that's an engineer - then I'm a nuclear physicist. I'm tired of fake names being given to jobs so that they appear to be glamorous. Take the train conductor for instance - that's they guy that collects tickets. Once I saw a conductor with two patches on his sleeve - one was a star and the other was an admiral insignia like he was in the NJ Transit Military.
What do those patches mean? Is he responsible for a platoon of ticket collectors? Did he outperform his peers in Collector Bootcamp? How was it determined that he should receive this distinguished honor? And the engineer, what a racket - in order to become a member of the "Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers" you must of course be an engineer. Here are the qualifications for being a Locomotive Engineer:
1. At least 21 years of age
2. Minimum education of high school or equivalent
3. Good physical condition with excellent hearing and eyesight
Seriously - these guys are engineers? The scarier part is that "If you become a locomotive engineer, you’ll join the ranks of the most skilled and experienced of all rail workers." That must mean that the other employees of the railroad are a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. Can you imagine going to work each day and aspiring to become a locomotive engineer? "Darn - if only I was in good physical condition with excellent hearing and eyesight. I blame my mother."
What do those patches mean? Is he responsible for a platoon of ticket collectors? Did he outperform his peers in Collector Bootcamp? How was it determined that he should receive this distinguished honor? And the engineer, what a racket - in order to become a member of the "Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers" you must of course be an engineer. Here are the qualifications for being a Locomotive Engineer:
1. At least 21 years of age
2. Minimum education of high school or equivalent
3. Good physical condition with excellent hearing and eyesight
Seriously - these guys are engineers? The scarier part is that "If you become a locomotive engineer, you’ll join the ranks of the most skilled and experienced of all rail workers." That must mean that the other employees of the railroad are a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. Can you imagine going to work each day and aspiring to become a locomotive engineer? "Darn - if only I was in good physical condition with excellent hearing and eyesight. I blame my mother."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)