January 2012
6 posts
Pants
I have this horrible pair of pants that I hate. They’re these flat-front dockers with absolutely nothing special about them and if I recall correctly I got them for like $18.99 at Kohl’s when I had a 30% off coupon so I guess subtract almost 6 bucks from that total. I would love to throw them away, but right now I am too fat for them, and I want to wear them one last time so they...
Beyonce is better than me
I just saw a headline on CNN.com that read “Beyonce is already a wonderful mom.” And I kind of wanted to let myself think that maybe it is because she has nannies, and maybe it is because taking care of a newborn is difficult and exhausting but really requires more stamina and willingness to do all the mechanical tasks related to keeping your baby clothed and fed and clean than it...
Cash
A very long time ago, my dad was coaching my brother in little league. When practice started, and he needed to be on the field leading drills and demonstrating fundamentals, he handed me his wallet and asked me to watch it. Being a curious 9 year old, I of course could not resist the temptation to open and rifle through it, and to my amazement, he had at least four hundred bucks in cash in...
Big Fat Loser
So I had my first weigh-in of the year last night, and it wasn’t as ugly as I feared. I am in the neighborhood of 40 pounds under my heaviest weight ever, and about 25 pounds above my lowest, and not quite in the obese range of BMI so score!
The thing is I feel way fatter than I remember feeling when I have been in the neighborhood of this weight before. Possibly because I have been...
Fun with Resolutions
I have the exact same resolutions every single year. I thought it would be fun this year to make the exact same resolutions again, while rating how well I achieved them last year.
1. Lose Weight- 0/10.
2. Write more- 0/10
3. Run/exercise more- 2/10
4. Be more productive and efficient at work- 3/10
5. At least not gain any weight- 0/10
6. Drink less- 0/10
7. Spend less time dicking around...
December 2011
9 posts
My Music Year
I’m not going to lead off this post with an self absorbed rant about whether anyone could possibly care about what music I liked this year. Suffice it to say that I went through a lot of music this year (for me) and I made a list of what I liked the best. I am sharing it with you because who cares, don’t read it, whatever. Jesus.
TOP 10
10. Beirut- pretty little indie type songs with horns. A...
Texburgher
I picked up a bottle of gin for him. He’ll probably offer to give me money for it, but I’m going to say it is a gift. Then he’ll probably be all, no, let me give you money for it, and I’ll refuse, and I’ll tell him I am insulted he won’t allow me to give him a nice present, and at that point, that fucking cheap ass will probably gracefully accept it.
Anonymous asked: so do you celebrate Christmas?
Anonymous asked: What does Jesus have to do with Christmas, anyway ? HO HO HO
Rick Perry and religion.
Well, guess I’m not voting for Rick Perry now. Because of the anti-gay bigotry and war on Christmas bullshit. And also because I don’t agree with him on a vast majorityof issues. Not because he invoked religion in a similar fashion as Hitler did. Politicians have done that since politics was invented. I mean, people say bullshit like “Jesus was a liberal” like anyone...
Thinkin'
You know how in high school, you usually had to sign your textbook at the beginning of the year so if you messed it up real bad, they would be able to trace it back to you. But sometimes, they would hand out books just for like a day for an activity and what not. Well, if I ever had the opportunity to take temporary possession of a book without having to put my name on it, I would always write...
Hey In-Laws.
That last one wasn’t about you, it was about my own parents. I know you don’t see them often, but in the event you bump into them, don’t tell them about my blog.
To hit send, or not to hit send.
In response to the 4000th time my folks have mentioned they hope we can visit them in Florida.
I’m aware you hope we can visit because I think you mention it every time we talk and in most of the e-mails you send. We would like to visit, but our winter schedule makes it extremely difficult with the kids and Heather in school, not to mention my general difficulty taking big chunks of time off...
November 2011
7 posts
in the fade: my annual announcement about your... →
Can someone who has received my family holiday newsletter (Caprice, Geoff, Stephanie, Cassie, Dinobrain peeps, Jeff Kelley etc.) please tell Michele she is full of crap?
inthefade:
I hate your family’s holiday newsletter. I don’t really care if you and Hank are spending the holidays in the South of France while your darling children are off discovering a cure for cancer or backpacking through...
SPOILER ALERT
I don’t think my kids read this blog, but Parker, if you are reading this, cut it out because there are going to be swears. Graham, if you are reading this, you have been willfully deceptive about your ability to comprehend the written word beyond the kindergarten level, and you can consider yourself grounded.
Anyways, on to the spoilers. I got Parker a guitar for Christmas. It’s...
MORE TUMBLRS
Keep an eye out for some new tumblrs I am working on in my brain, one will be a criticism of internet trends that I will attempt to write in Andy Rooney’s voice, and another is going to be sort of like the website about people who look like Kenny Rogers, but it’s going to be like a “People who people look like” hall of fame, which I thought up when I saw like 4 people in...
Penn State
There’s a woman who I got to third base with in I think 1989, and then she later started dating my friend and we were all at a New Years’ Eve party in I think 1994 and when my friend passed out she tried to make out with me, and I haven’t really spoken to her since. Point is, I strongly disagree with her facebook support of Joe Paterno but I don’t know if it’s a good...
POLITICS
I’ll probably tweet this if I can distill it to 140 characters so I pre-apologize if anyone has to read this twice (or once for that matter.)
The fact that all sides of a political debate can usually argue that Jesus supports their position says a lot more about the malleability of religion and scourge of political opportunism than it does about the merits of any particular viewpoint.
...
Manlihood
So I guess Bill Bennett wrote a book on the diminishment of the American male, and he seems to make a lot of political points with which I do not agree but I certainly have lots of thoughts on what it means to be an adult man in America, and how men who are my age are different from their fathers and grandfathers. And I think a lot about the portrayal of manhood in popular media and how few...
For goodness sakes
What in the world does Kim Kardashian’s wedding have to do with building schools? If you intend to criticize things that are beneath building schools in the financial priority list, you better damn well clean your own house first and if you have a $1500 TV you bought when your old TV from college still worked instead of building a school with it, you are a monster of Kardashian-like...
October 2011
1 post
COLLEGE
My grandparents met at Pitt’s pharmacy school. My grandmother was one of the first women to go through the program. My grandfather’s friend Lou wanted to date a a co-ed and asked my grandfather if he would take her roommate (my grandmother) out so they could double date, and my grandfather was okay with that.
My grandfather grew up poor, like outhouse poor. The story goes that he...
September 2011
2 posts
Politics
I don’t post political a lot, but I think about politics a whole bunch. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the death penalty, and have come to the conclusion that I oppose it on purely moral/philosophical grounds, i.e., a civilized society should not put people to death. Not because you never know if a convicted killer is innocent, and not because there might be a particular convicted...
Stupid Thoughts
Just about everything you can do in your life will suffer if it is done without heart, or soul, or insight, or empathy, or whatever you want to call it, but maybe nothing moreso than your jokes.
August 2011
5 posts
More Lone Wolf McQuade
“remember me, greaser?” *KICKS GUY IN THE FACE*
*GREASER ROLLS OVER AND SHOOTS GUY*
“yeah, I never forget an asshole.”
HOLY CRAP
Lone Wolf McQuade is on right now
Fact #1: everyone is pretty sick of Chuck Norris facts.
Fact #2: if you are Chuck Norris and David Carradine’s men knock you out and David Carradine puts you in your fucking awesome 4x4 and drops it in a hole and covers it up with several tons of dirt, you can just chug half a beer and dump the other half on your glistening beard and chest hair, then start your truck and gun it and it will...
Social Media Again
i hate just like ruminating on here but I saw something retweeted in my stream yesterday that was completely repellant and I am considering making a comment about it on twitter even though I just don’t use my twitter for anything other than posting crap about my life that I think might amuse people.
Social Media
Myspace: Don’t have it.
Facebook: Don’t care for it.
Twitter: So so sick of reading jokes and trying to think up jokes.
Google Plus: Don’t have strategy for using it.
Tumblr: Not my bag.
Vacation
I vacationed with my family. One day a person from the internet came and sat on our blanket for awhile. I took a bunch of pictures and put them on facebook and instagram so friends and family could see how much fun we were having on the vacation. Most of the pictures were of just the kids because the ones of me looked a little fat. We caught crabs and one fish big enough to eat, so we had...
May 2011
5 posts
CRAPTURE
You know, every world religion has belief in dozens if not hundreds of occurrences or phenomena from the past or which they predict or prophesy will occur in the future which are just as ludicrous and worthy of mockery as the rapture. At least the rapture people had the balls to put an immediately verifiable date on it without relying on platitudes about how if God revealed Himself then that...
King of a small portion of what I survey
The first thing you have to do is prevent crabgrass, so you have to put down the first treatment early. This one is a no-brainer because you just toss the lawn chemicals in your spreader and do a cheery stroll around your lawn making sure you don’t overspread. Does it make the worms toxic for birds? Doesn’t seem to. But I believe at least one of them has been driven mad, and...
Music
When I was a kid, my parents played a ton of music, and I was basically brainwashed into thinking the stuff they liked was good, so I grew up thinking stuff like the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Tina Turner were cool. I am not going to do that to my kids. They have to listen to my music all the time, but it is stuff that is actually good, like Depeche Mode and the Avett Brothers. My kids will be...
Truthful Tuesday
Last night, on my couch, playing Words With Friends on my iPad, (CranberryJason if you are up for it,) this conversation ensued.
Heather: Soooo, have you gotten me a Mother’s Day Gift yet?
Me: Nope. Wait are you trying to tell me you want something?
Heather: Well, I did see this neat [message deleted from my memory.]
Luckily, she is not my mother, but oh man is she going to be pissed...
April 2011
11 posts
Weeds
Tonight, we are going on a date to Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate the 40th birthday of our neighbor. No portion of that sentence should be surprising. So I am showered and looking okay. Heather is super foxy, of course. This is unusual for a weekend. By way of background, I wear a suit every day because I am a man and I work in a city. My job usually requires one but I think i would wear...
Description of my Wedding Photo
I do not have any on my computer. But I am looking at it right now, and it looks pretty awesome. July 12, 1997. My wife is wearing a white dress and holding a bouquet and looks super hot. I am sure at the time I told her she looked beautiful but in my head I was likely making a comical sound signifying arousal, and I did not feel like it would be classy to say she looked...
stacey727 asked: Um, how about writing more stuff?
Sleepovers
My son turned eight at the end of February, so as you would expect, we are allowing him to celebrate his birthday this weekend by having a friend sleep over. First we went to Ci Ci’s all you can eat pizza which is like the Wal-Mart of pizza shops which is to say pretty awesome. Of all the places in Cranberry where you can get Macaroni and Cheese on pizza, and enough of it that you...
FIRST CONCERT
Depeche Mode World Violation 1990. Star Lake Amphiteatre, outside of Pittsburgh PA. I was from out in the country so me and my friends had to be driven there by my MOM in our GIANT VAN. It was three dudes and two girls, and I made out with one of the girls on the way there, and the other on the way home, in the back of that giant van. NO JOKE. We are actually not too far off from the 21st...
Mission Statement
When I told my wife I had a tumblr I could tell she thought it was a dumb idea but she is way too kind and attractive to say anything like that. So when I begged her to stop watching Dancing with the Stars for five minutes to read my posts, there was a lot at stake. And frankly, it did not go well because she didn’t laugh, and she asked if I really thought the construction on I-79 was...
Running is hard.
First off, it is physically difficult to build up endurance in your legs, heart and lungs. It takes time, and no how matter how much you train, during any given run you will feel exhausted and in serious pain. It is physically taxing on your joints and you could chafe.
It is mentally tough. As mentioned, you’ll feel tired and your legs will feel strained even when you are in excellent...
Traffic
I live 23 miles away from where I work, and am therefore wracked with guilt almost all the time even though my car gets very good gas mileage especially since I drive a manual transmission and I can pop it out of gear and coast down hills. Still, 23 miles is like 2/3 of a gallon of gas and that is a lot, both in cost to my budget and my carbon footprint. I try to make up for it by using a coffee...
Athletics
if you have met me in person and fully absorbed my physical presence, you probably think I am a finely tuned athlete. Not entirely true. Here is what I can do:
1. Throw a baseball. Like really throw it good.
2. Catch a baseball. Really, only adequately
3. Throw and catch a football. Only occasionally in a spiral.
4. Run pretty far but really slow.
5. Dribble and shoot a basketball. Not...
Grass
Having pretty severe anxiety over how to balance putting enough weed killer down to eliminate weeds without killing the existing grass. A complicating factor in this analysis is that soon I will need to plant new grass seed to take care of some patchiness in my front and back yards. The weed killer will make that difficult because my soil is basically toxic right now. But you know what else...