TWSSF

It's That's What She Said Friday, but not just any TWSSF. It's a special TWSSF because today is the birfday of two of our most frequent contributors and loyal readers. Have a happy B day Dave and Amanda, I hope it doesn't suck. That's what she said. Here's an email I got from Leslie this week:

Kristin was feeling like she may be getting sick so during lunch she went over to whole foods to pick up some vitamin C. She came back with a big bottle of these huge green pills. The bottle instructs you to take 6 every 3 hours, which seems ridiculous and lethal.
Not to be deterred, Kristin confirmed "Its ok guys Im really good at swallowing things."
Morgan: "Thats what she said"
To make it even funnier Kristin didnt even hear Morgan because she was too focused on the pill popping. I was just sitting at my desk giggling for a few minutes then Kristin said, "What? What did I say? Ohh Im good at swallowing? I knew that came out wrong." (Ed. Note: I wou'd have added a second TWSS after that last comment, but that's just me.


Working in the field that I do (structural engineering) I come across some fairly hilarious terms. Being extremely immature I often laugh at these terms. An example:
A coworker was on the phone with a client discussing the final plans for some building I don't know anything about when he said, "We're going to have trouble getting it erected." What I heard was, "I'm going to have trouble getting an erection," obviously I found this hialrious. In my head I said, that's what he said. I almost said it out loud but then I thought if I said that it might sound like I was projecting some sort of personnal problem so I tried to think of a way to say it without sounding like I had erectile dysfunction. The best I could come up with was "That's what she hopes he doesn't say." I almost said that but then I thought that would sound like I was trying to hard so I wanted to come up with something better. By then the moment had passed. Moral of the story? I'm a nerd.

Hump Day Indeed!

Are you little bored at work? Maybe feeling a little gloomy? Midweek doldrums have me a little down as well but I know just the remedy to cheer us both up. It's a video of a guy getting raped by a tripod. Enjoy:









One these days soon I'll regain the energy and the desire to write actual posts again instead of this crap. As awesome as that crap is.

Trivia Time!

This is a picture of my leg:




That is seriously the worst scrape I've ever had. I couldn't sleep at all on Saturday because it was ozzing puss everywhere and sticking to the bed. I kept making that teeth sucking noise like Peter Griffin after he banged his knee. So it begs the following question, eshewing comments about how pale and skinny my legs are, how did I hurt my leg?

Your title How did I injure my leg? I got a little overzealous doing tricks on my hog and crashed I slid into a manhole on the street just to prove I was a badass who doesn Someone disrespected my lady, the scrape was an unfortunate side effect to the beating I gave him defending her honor I fell down playing touch football other view results

TWSSF

It's Friday. You know what that means. It's time for another installment of That's What She Said Friday! I know it's pretty lame to not post all week and then come back with this but I'm doing it anyway. I've been busy, get off my back. From Dave, enjoy (he doesn't use capital letters):

short and simple:

my key was kind of jamming in the front door and not unlocking easy, so i sprayed some WD-40 on it and then it worked pretty well.

so i say to my roomate, "it is working better, i lubed it up." and he made the obvious reply "is it thats what she said friday yet?"

and then he used his key and said that he thought it was a little too loose. so my front door is a whore now.

An Apology

In lieu of the usual That’s What She Said Friday I would like to use this time to apologize. You may recall my post on Wednesday in which I referred to karma with a derogatory term. That was a grave mistake that I sincerely apologize for. If I were to give you, my readers, some advice it would be to treat karma with the respect it deserves. Do not temp fate. If you do there will be consequences. For example, let’s say you wrote a blog post and in said post you called karma a bitch, it’s like that less than 2 hours later you will come home from work to find your car windows smashed and all your stuff stolen. Seriously karma? That was cold blooded. It wasn’t even my car. Did you really have to take out my transgressions on my girlfriend’s car just so some bum could steal my stuff? Not cool karma, but I learned my lesson. Again, I apologize for calling you a bitch and now on I will have nothing but the utmost reverence for your awesome power.

That Bitch Got Me Again

On several occasions I have used the plight of our fair cities homeless population as blog fodder. I’m not certain if this makes me a bad person or not, because you can never really know the circumstances of a person’s situation until you talk to them. And I’m rarely in the business of chatting up anyone on the street, much less a homeless man. So I think it might make me a bad person, but really it’s so easy, how often do you see homeless people doing something crazy that you could write 1,000 hilarious words about? It happens to me constantly. Here’s an example: last night I was eating outside at Panera with Leslie, on the corner was a homeless man harassing anyone who walked by. He was really getting in peoples faces, but it was totally working because some guy gave him his leftover PF Chang’s to get him to leave his girlfriend alone. Maybe it’s just me but I would have to be in some real duress to give someone my Chang’s spicy chicken, so I guess his tactics were effective. As he went to hassle someone new he dropped his change cup spilling quarters and nickels everywhere along the sidewalk. The ensuing scramble was one of the saddest things I think I’ve ever seen. The man was pretty frantic to pick up his change and kept trying to get people to stop and help him. I being a bad person found a little amusement out of it though, because the guy was clearly jacked up on some foreign substance. Every time he bent down to pick up a coin he’d wobble and have to brace himself before falling over. Eventually he devised a system where he would spread his legs really wide, then bend over and gather change. Sort of like a tripod, the wider the base the more stable. Ultimately, he recouped his losses and was on his way to enjoy some leftover lettuce wraps and live happily ever after.

The point is normally I would’ve made fun of this guy having no idea whether he deserved it or not. Now though I think karma has jumped up to bite me. You see, as of this week I will be joining the ranks of the homeless I so mercilessly belittle. My lease is up on Sunday, my roommate is moving in with her boyfriend and I am left without a place of my own. Well not really, I’m moving in with a friend who recently bought a house but the room won’t be available for another couple of weeks. So I’m out on the streets. Well not really that either, fortunately I have neither a drug or alcohol problem that has alienated everyone in my life who I could ask for help. I have plenty of friends and a wonderful girlfriend who will keep me from being a total vagrant until I can move in to the new place. But still, I’ll be a nomad living out of a bag for two or the weeks. It’s pretty annoying and it’s definitely my karmic payback for using the homeless for comedic gain. Plus what if this is where it all starts? Maybe this is the beginning of a slippery slope. It starts with me staying in a different house every few days. Then someone says, “Hey why don’t you try some of this crack?” And I’m all, “Sure what’s the worst that can happen?” Then bam, I’m a homeless guy begging for change and getting made fun of by some loser with a blog. That would suck, but at least I’d get some free PF Chang’s every once in a while.

You Have Questions and I Have Answers

To the person who found my blog through the Google search "my knee is swollan and and its all liquid what do i do?" I have to the advice you're looking for. First off I'm going to assume you meant swollen and not some weird slang implying that your knee is swallowing things. It's an easy mistake to make. You're probably experiencing some discomfort that is affecting your typing ability. For starters I'm going to tell you what not to do. Do not go to a doctor. They're totally useless. Only in it for the money. They don't have your best interests at heart like I do. The solution is simple. Just rummage through your junk draw and find that sewing kit you bought a few years ago because the hem came out of your suit pants. Just treat your knee like an abnormally large blister. Take the needle for the sewing kit and pop that bitch. Be careful though, there's probably a lot of pressure built up in there and a small pinhole will cause a pretty powerful spray. If you're worried about staining your shirt and/or wall just use a steak knife instead. You also might want to be on the look out for infections, so you should sterilize your knee stabbing instrument. Simply running it under hot tap water should suffice. After that wrap an ace bandage around that sucker and you should be good to go. You'll playing hockey or wrestling bears or drinking Labatts or whatever else people do in Ontario in no time.

Your Welcome,

Eric

TWSS Friday's Triumphant Return

That's What She Said Friday is back! I missed the last two weeks and was pretty thoroughly berated for it. Sorry for having a job that sometimes gets in the way of you being entertained by juvenile humor. I won't let it happen again. Jerks. I wasn't going to do it again this week because caught some sort of deadly virus on a plane this weekend. Or a cold, either way I feel like crap. Airplanes are cess pools of disease by the way. Especially ones flying between Cleveland and Baltimore. Anyway, on with the festivities.

Here's one I stole from Jake:

Went on a SHA golf outing today. Frank, a 55 year old head of the hydro department, picks up a golf ball and slowly reads the label on it aloud, "Noodle... long and soft". Without hesitation, Denny, a 60 some year old highway designer, blurts out "That's what your wife said." I guess that's the old balls way of saying TWSS.

It's nice to see the forefathers of TWSS still have it.

Next:

For some reason Brian thought it would be a good idea to try and sharpen a Twizzler and use it as a pencil. This process is harder than you think. Also it produces a conversation resulting in no less than 5 top notch TWSSs. I only remember one (Don't forget I'm nearly on my deathbed, it may have caused some sort of neurological damage), here's how it went:

Bingo was trying to sharpen the Twizzler himself but was having a harder time operating the manual pencil sharpener and holding the Twizzler firm enough to be sharpened.

Brian: (Now holding the Twizzler) You get it going and I'll stick it in as hard as I can.
Bingo: (Cranking furiously at the pencil sharpener)
Me: That's what he said.

Yes

Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.!
Run or pass and score -- we want a lot more!
Beat 'em, Swamp 'em,
Touchdown! -- Let the points soar!
Fight on, fight on 'Til you have won
Sons of Wash-ing-ton. Rah!, Rah!, Rah!
Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.!


Can I start getting excited yet?

Hell Yeah!

I often get great enjoyment out of seeing the Google searches that send people to this blog. Some people search for some pretty odd things. My most frequent hits come from folks who want to read the writings from people likeminded in their hatred of birds. That and peeing outside. Apparently I’m one of the leading experts on peeing outside. Today though I received a hit from a Google search that could not make me happier, seriously it’s awesome. According to Google I am the world’s #1 authority on “something badass.” That’s right, perform a search for “something badass” and this blog is the first thing you’ll see. I figure this means one of two things:

1. I am the official last word on all things badass. If you need to know if
you or something around you is in fact badass I’m the one to talk. Or…

2. I’m the biggest badass in the world.

You know what? Strike that, it doesn’t mean on of those two, it’s both of those two. If I get final say on what is badass or not then I say I’m the biggest badass in the world. And if I ‘m the biggest badass in the world then who could possibly be more of an expert on what is or isn’t badass? So for future reference if you ever are on the fence as to whether something is badass or not feel free to email me or leave a comment and I’d be more than happy to provide an answer to your query. Or I might just say f you, because I’m badass and I don’t have to answer your stupid questions if I don’t want.

An Open Letter to The Guy Who Cut Me Off In Traffice This Morning

Dear Guy Who Cut Me Off In Traffic This Morning,

Kudos to you sir on your bold maneuvers through the city streets this morning, I must say you caught me completely off guard. When you were in the far left lane of a six lane road with your left turn signal on, and I pulled up in the lane next to you at the stop light I certainly was not expecting that upon the light turning green you would immediately veer right to try and get in my lane totally cutting me off and nearly sideswiping me. You gave me the old okey doke, fake left, go right. That gets me every time. Even more unexpected was your incredulous hand gesture you gave me when I honked my horn to prevent you from driving directly into my fender. Apparently I’m the asshole for be in the path of your insanely erratic driving. I apologize, next time I’ll be sure to yield for people driving diagonally across the flow of traffic. I should’ve known better. It got even better though when you decided you did in fact want to make that desired left turn a few blocks later. The only problem was that it came from the right lane of the intersection thus adding the driver of a large SUV to the list of people who had nearly t-boned you this morning. Unfortunately he made the same mistake as I did in thinking that you were at fault. Although I would have to side with him on this matter. Based on a very small sample size it seems as though 20 out of every 60 seconds you spend on the road you’re being honked at. This should be a sign to you. Perhaps you need to reevaluate things. Maybe take another drivers’ education course. Or take more taxis. It seems to me that the only reason you’re still alive is because of the safe driving of the people around, which obviously you don’t realize because you drive with your eyes closed. I hope you can take my advice to heart, no one to see flying through a windshield one day.

Sincerely,

Eric

Criminals Aren't Smart Sometimes.

Last weekend was somewhat disorienting for me. I guess it was the extra day but really the whole weekend seemed strange. It really feels like it was much longer than three days. Probably because I had a horrendous hangover on Sunday. You know the kind of day when you’re really hung over and you don’t get out of bed until the late afternoon, but that later that night you’re feeling better so you end up doing something and it feels like it was two separate days? That was my whole weekend I think. As a result it’s really thrown me off my blog game. I’m out of sorts. It’s a combination of things: I can’t think of anything to write, I don’t feel like writing about things I could write about (like how I went Maryland State Fair on Friday and it was the trashiest most awful/awesome thing I’ve ever seen, really I highly recommend it), and I don’t really know what day it is.

I decided to troll around my usually news sites this morning to see if there was anything I felt the need to comment on. Luciano Pavarotti died; I figured I could write something funny about that. You know, something along the lines of: What a shocker, didn’t see that one coming blah blah blah. Make a joke about cannolis or meat sauce or something. Basically the standard Pavarotti is fat joke. Then I saw he actually died of pancreatic cancer, not something related to his morbid obesity. Also it’s in poor taste and not that funny to make fun of dead people. Or fat people. Especially internationally beloved dead, fat people. I’m a dick.

I thought I might just give up. Put up a TWSSF post tomorrow and call it a week. Then I ran across this gem. A man shot himself in the leg fleeing the scene of a robbery inside RFK stadium. There are just so many great parts of this story. Apparently when security half-assedly (it’s a word) waves those wands around my crotch their doing absolutely nothing to ensure my safety because this dude didn’t seem to have a problem getting a gun past them. Clearly he isn’t some criminal mastermind who devised an ingenious scheme to get a gun on the premises for the sake of a robbery because he attempted to rob a vendor ON THE FIFTH FLOOR. Seriously, the top floor of the stadium is where you decide to stage this daring raid? Not the first floor so you can run right outside and get away. Not to mention that’s the upper deck. Where the poor people sit. Who’s buying more $9 personal pizzas; the people fighting a nose bleed a mile high in the bleachers or the people in the box seats? I’ll grant you one reprieve, there’s probably less security on that floor, but you still have to run past the security on all the other floors. Although based on their previously stated wanding skills it’s probably not shocking that you managed to make it outside before they caught you. Maybe you thought this out better than I thought robber. I just wish I was there to see the chase. Imagine how hilarious it was watching them wind back and forth down those ramps. It’s like a high speed chase down a spiral staircase.

Now about the gun. Clearly the plan was to ditch it when you were outside the stadium. My advice to you sir, ditch it before shooting yourself in the leg. Running is hard with a gunshot wound.

Here’s another query I have: why travel from Baltimore to robbed a stadium in D.C.? There’s a stadium in Baltimore as well. I’ve been there, it’s nice. Also, you know those security guards they have at RFK pretending to care if you bring a gun in? Well they don’t even have those in Baltimore. Its fool proof, not even the slightest chance getting caught before you pull off the robbery. Plus instead of hopping fences and shooting yourself in the leg you could just run home, kick your feet up, and count your money. All in all I’d say that was a pretty awful plan. My favorite part of this article though was the last sentence. Thanks for mentioning the Nats won, that’s just icing on the cake.

TWSSF

I'm actually extremely busy at work today which is really rare. I have a ton of work to do before I leave at three for the weekend. You think that's stopping from posting That's What She Said Friday? Hell no. My dedication is unparalleled. Not my dedication to my job mind you, my dedication to you, the readeres. On with it:


Her's one from frequent contributers Kenny and Amanda:

Its game night with the work crew. Everyone is sitting there, relatively silent as one game changes to the next. Across from me is one Mr. Kim Robinson...he's trying to take a sip through a straw of his frozen daquari and he's just not having the success he wants.

Kim: Man, I can't get this up
Amanda (looks around to see who is within ear shot): That's what she said.
All: Laughter, snickering and some questions about "who is she?"


Also frequent contributor Mike added to his frequent contributions:

One of my fellow nerd poker players had these gourmet stuffed olives and offered me one, so I tried to get one out of the jar without sticking my whole hand in. I was basically using one finger and trying to roll one up the side of the jar. She saw my unsuccessful attempts at obtaining the olive and said "What are you doing? Use two fingers!" And well, you know what I said next otherwise I wouldn't be writing you this email.


I had a good one this week also! Here it goes:

Leslie: (trying on headbands) I wish this was a little tighter.
Me: That's what he said.

Boo ya. See how I switch that up on you guys. That's what he said is really advanced, only an expert like myself can pull something like that off.

Big Day

I would like to personally like to congratulate some dude (or lady) from England for being the 15,000 person to vist my blog. It's quite a milestone, this must be a very big day in your life. Cheers (or whatever an English person would say in this situation).

The Queen of Mean

I was only 8 years old when Leona Helmsley was a big news story. All I remember is she served some time in jail for tax evasion and that she was kind of a bitch. She earned the nickname "Queen of Mean" for her horrible treatment of everyone around her. Well she just died and apparently she is a much bigger bitch than anyone thought. $12 million to your dog. You're fucking dog. Not the person you left your dog to, your dog. That is the about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I grew up with dogs, I loved them, but if I died before them I would just have to hope a relative took good care of them and called it a life. I certainly wouldn't be leaving an money to them. You know they can't spend in right? Not only do they lack the ability to communicate, the don't even have opposable thumbs to hold money with. And on top of that you leave half of your grandchildren nothing? Seriously? Oh, I'm a billionaire but I'm going to screw over my grandchildren for life. Why you ask? They know what they did. What did they do? Kill you? Because that's the only thing I can think of that would be a good reason to stick to them like that.

Thank you Miss South Carolina, we are all a little bit dumber now

This link was sent to me courtesy of Brian



I can't wrap my head around that enough to be snarky. That is simply the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Advice on love

Dear person who came my blog via the google search "Help I'm in Love With a Homeless Dude",

I can only assume you came here seeking council on matters of the heart, and let me tell you, you came to the right place. Not only am I an expert on love, I'm also an expert on homeless people. First off though I have to ask, why the despondent tone? You sound as if you feel this is some sort of forbidden love that should go unrequited simply because this person doesn't have a home, or job, or the ability to say no to drugs. I say that hogwash. The heart wants what the heart wants and you should never deny it that. But I would recommend going into this relationship with a slight sense of trepidation. Don't get caught up paying every time you guys go on a date. And sometimes insist on sleeping in the streets with this person. It's the only way to know they're in it for the right reason and not simply because you have food and shelter. You not in this for charity, you're in it for love. But in summation I say go for, tell this Homeless Dude about your feelings and enjoy the rewards.

You're Welcome

Eric

TWSSF

It's friday, you know what that means, it's time to let everyone else do the work for me with That's What She Said Friday! Lets get to it.

This weekend I was in New York with Mike and Leslie. We stayed with Mike's cousin Brian, who is not exactly a TWSS connoisseur. He hasn't quite grasped the joke, but he tries and that's what really matters. On Saturday we were coming out of the subway, Brian in the lead, when we ran into a homeless man who said "Got any change you can spare?"

To which Brian's response was, "That's what she said."

I think the homeless guy was a little befuddled because he then said, "Who's she?"



Here's one of the raunchy TWSSs you'll hear. Matt has a coworker who has been fighting a cold all week. He decided to battle through the cold and have some spicy food lunch which he described thusly, "It's kind of hot going down my throat." Matt didn't choke this time and actually provided the appropriate response. I'm glad you're learning the importance of That's What She Said in our society Matt.


Here's a submission from Dave:

a couple of my eletrical sockets stopped working tonight, so my roomate and linds (Ed note: Dave's fiancee) and i are trying to fix them. we end up hitting the reset button and it works. i said, oh yeah, thats what i sometimes have to do the socket outside for the sump pump. if it gets too wet, i need to stick my finger under it and hit the button.

my roomate replies...

That's What She Said (Ed. Note: Well played Dave's roommate)

I finally found the secret!!!

- Like most bloggers I’m obsessed with my blog stats. It’s pretty sad; I check them like 10 times a day (and by 10 I mean at least 400). Every time I post I get a small spike in readers thanks to the DCBlogs live feed. Yesterday I experienced a much larger spike and I think I may have discovered the secret to increased blogularity. The Holy Grail if you will. It’s all in the title. Yesterday’s said something about hipsters, people in DC either are hipsters or they hate them, so they clicked on the link. From now on I think I might only use titles people will find provocative. Here are some examples:
- DC cops suck
- I hate the f’ing metro
- Missed Connections anyone?
- What LNS is up to this week

People will be so intrigued they can’t stay away. Only to be disappointed by what lame crap I’m writing about now.



- Speaking of blog stats, I just looked at Technorati for the first time ever. I see it everywhere but I was much too lazy to care what it was until today. Apparently I have the 876,860th most popular blog. Boo yah.



- I know that no one likes to hear about someone else’s dream but I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s relevant, you’ll see. I dreamed I was in Transformers the movie last night. I don’t remember a lot of the details, I never do, but it doesn’t matter anyways because I’ve never seen the movie so I don’t really know how accurate they would be. And I hate Shia Lebeouf. It was a surprising vivid dream considering it was totally drawn from a 30 second trailer. Anyway, in that dream a lot of people are dying, I didn’t but Transformers were eating my friends left and right. It was gruesome. Well when my alarm went off this morning guess which song was playing? No, it wasn’t the theme from Transformers, that would be way too obvious. It was “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel. Isn’t that freaky? All my friends were dying. They’re good. They’re young. Uncanny. That type of stuff happens to me all the time. I might be Harry Potter and not know it.

Fun with Hipsters

Here's a fun thing to do. Next time you're in New York, and you find yourself in a bar with a bunch cool kids listening to some cool kid indie rock music throw them a curve ball. Go up to the jukebox and play the most cheesetastic 80's ballad you can think of (I chose Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All") then sit back and enjoy. Watch as they scoff at the new selection. Clearly they're much to cool for that. Then notice a few people singing, and then by the time the first refrain hits everyone is loving it because who doesn't love Air Supply. It brings people together, even if they are to cool for school.

I'm going out of town for the weekend so I'm taking tomorrow off. So essentially that makes today my Friday. You know what that means? It's That's What She Said Friday! On a THURSDAY! This is like The Matrix or something. I just blew my own mind.







This weeks TWSS comes from Mike and Tony. Mike as has been documented was on the forefront of TWSS awesomeness, Tony is a relative newcomer. It involves an epic, unprecedented TWSS triple. Enjoy:


Backstory: Tony is a former officemate of Mike's in grad school. He's an avid fan of both the Office and baseball. They were at a Nats game.

Tony (half way through an Italian sausage, looks up with a smirk): This sausage is huge, I'm having trouble fitting my mouth around it.
Mike: That's what she said.
Tony: That was like T-ball.
Mike: Yeah, as soon as you turned your head I knew something was coming... (brief pause) That's what she said.
Tony: Nice self set-up.
Mike: Sometimes you have to do that.
Tony: Yeah, now that you aren't there any more, I'm forced to do it in the office.
Mike: That's what she said.

I need like tree fitty

I write a lot about homeless people in this forum. I’m really sure why, they just sort of fascinate me. And a lot of them a crazy and therefore hilarious. I always find myself curious of there circumstances, I want to know how they ended up where they are today. I never ask because it seems rude to a homeless dude what happened to his home, but still I’m curious. For example on my walk to work most mornings I see a couple spooning in a little alcove in a building and I think to myself, where the dating before become homeless and if so how did two people find themselves on the streets simultaneously? Couldn’t one of them have gotten there life together for the other? Or did they meet while being homeless? If that’s the case it’s someone heartwarming to know that two people can find love anywhere. Or maybe they’re not in love; they’re just keeping each other warm. Which is still sort of sweet I guess. But it’s hot as hell here so I think they must be in love. Only two people who really love each other could stand to spoon while sweating profusely. Anyway, the point is I’m curious about these people.

There is another man I see everyday that I have a lot of questions about. My house is about 200 yards from a large intersection. It gets very busy during rush hour, and everyday for close to a year this guy walks between the cars stopped at the red light with a sign, panhandling. I’ve never given him any money because it didn’t take long for me to realize that he’s making a pretty solid living. The guy has to make at least $8-$10 an hour. Some Walmart employees would be pissed if they knew about this guy. Also he never asked me, which I find sort of insulting. Do I look like some dick who wouldn’t give you any change? I mean I wouldn’t, but still. This man changes his clothes a couple times a week. Where does he keep his clothes? Granted he’s still not the cleanest guy in the world, and you can still usually tell he doesn’t bath regularly, but the ability to pick what outfit you want to wear to take advantage of the kindness of strangers that day puts you a step above your average beggar. From time to time I’ve seen him taking a break from begging for snack time. He takes a stroll down to Royal Farms for some yum yums to treat himself for a hard days work. And I wonder, when you’re homeless why go for the Goldfish and Oreo Cookies? Wouldn’t you want a turkey sandwich or something? Perhaps some protein or carbohydrates so you don’t, you know, die of malnutrition? I was always a little skeptical about whether he was actually homeless or not because of these things but yesterday removed a lot of doubt. I was walking downtown and I saw the same guy. I guess he had just gotten off of work at his corner and was taking a stroll. I was like oh hey, that’s that homeless guy, what’s he doing down here. Then I noticed something odd on his belt (some might even find it odd that he was wearing a belt but whatever). I glanced down and he had a cell phone clipped to his belt. I was stunned. First of all I always thought this guy seemed pretty cool, clearly he’s not because everyone knows cell phone belt clips are super lame. Second of all, how the f does a homeless guy have a cell phone? And who is he calling? And don’t any of those people have a couch he can crash on. I was pretty pissed that this guy goes out begging for people’s hard earned money and somehow affords a cell phone. Then this morning I saw him rocking a discman. This was equally as galling. Batteries are expensive and he’s homeless, which means he has to be bored a lot so I’m sure he wears them out often. If this guy ever asks me for money I’m punching him in the balls.

Badass?

This person is either the least observant person in the world or has the highest pain tolerance known to man. I'm imagining a conversation going something like this:

Group of motorcyclists pulls up to a stop light

Biker #1: Um dude, I just picked up half of your leg off of the road back there, you want it?

Biker #2: (bleeding profusely) What? Oh man. I don't know if you saw but I ran into that barrier a couple miles ago. I felt a little sting, but son of a bitch if my leg didn't fall off.

Biker #1: You want to maybe go to a hospital or something.

Biker #2: That might be a good idea. Passes out

Poppin' Collars

Nice window display Baby Gap. Do these shirts come with free admission to lacrosse camp? Seriously though, if I wanted to raise a litter of douche bags I don't need your double polo popped collar look, I'll just join the Republican party.

TWSS

I can tell by the literally tens of people flooding my stat tracker this morning that That's What She Said Friday is a bona fide phenomenon. The readers love it, I love it, Dwight Schrute loves it. I must provide a disclaimer though; My inbox has been blowing up all week with reader submissions, which is kick ass. Unfortunately I can't use them all because I'm just to lazy to compile everything together. I mean, really it's a lot of work. So if you don't see yours don't take offense, it doesn't mean you're not awesome, it just means that someone might have been awesomer this week. Anyway, on to it:

First up today is from Aaron, who was playing golf this Saturday with his girlfriend Sarah and her father when the following exchange occured:

sarah's dad: "you've really got to stick it in there stiff"
sarah: "that's what she said"


Next is from frequent TWSSF contributor Amanda and her sister Jeanine, who is best described as an avid reader and loyal fan. They were making a scrapbook for their younger sister Sarah which lead to this:

Jeanine: I have to say, it's much better doing this with someone than
having to do it all by myself
Calvin: That's what she said.


And one final TWSS for this week courtesy of my broseph. I'll let him tell you in his own words:

Maybe this doesn't apply because she actually said it, but I laughed and so I thought I'd share.

This was a conversation about roller coasters Sunday night. I don't how it started. Doesn't matter.

Jennifer: We went to Busch Gardens and rode the Griffon.......blah, blah, more story

Kessley: I hate roller coasters! (proceeds to tell lengthy story detailing traumatic childhood event). I don't understand what you like about them? Is it the feeling that you somehow survived something scary and dangerous?

David (that's me): It's just an adrenaline rush. There's no fear involved.

Josh: I hate them too. Jennifer makes me ride them.

Ashley (who, to this point, had contributed nothing to the conversation): You can put me on anything and I'll ride it!

Kessley, Josh, and Jennifer: silence

Well, you know the rest.......I couldn't resist the TWSS




Hope you enjoyed it, keep the submissions coming and I'll keep mailing it in on Fridays for your enjoyment.

Damn That Jeff

I’m what you would call a morning person. I rarely hit the snooze button. I don’t have a wrong side of the bed. I’m generally wide awake as soon as the buzzer sounds and usually in a decent mood. My disposition is rarely negatively effected by a mornings events. However there are certain things that can happen that will leave me in a great mood for an entire day. Sometimes I wake up to a good song and find myself dancing in bed before I even wake up. Sometimes I go to bed thinking the Yankees lost and get a pleasant surprise in the morning. And then sometimes I wake up and turn on the TV and receive this special treat:



Are you kidding me? Tell me you could ever be in a bad mood after watching Zach and Kelly in quite possibly the worst acted, worst written break up scene of all time. Even better than that, the background music is being provided by Jessy and Slater lip syncing a Michael Bolton song. I was dying and am still laughing now. Thank you Saved By the Bell, you made my day.

Awesome Things About Baltimore

Yesterday I was running through Federal Hill. It was hot. And humid. Near the end of my run I passed a man sitting on his stoop who was somewhat overweight (and by somewhat overweight I mean he was pushing 400lbs). He had a hat on that said "I heart Intercourse" and was spraying a hose at the tree in front of his house. Now I'm not a botanist but I'm pretty sure that a tree absorbs water and nutrients through its roots and spraying a tree trunk with a hose for 20 minutes is completely useless. I could be wrong, but thats beside the point. The point is this guy got my inner monologue going. I saw him and started thinking about the way I approach my life. Here I am busting my ass, it's like 113 degrees and 1000% percent humidity, and for what. He is totally relaxing without a care in the world. Is it really worth it to work out 5 or 6 times a week when all I really have to do is let myself go, sit on my stoop smoking a few parliments hosing down a tree, and wear clothing declaring my love for vaginal penetration (actually I think it was promoting a town in Pennsylvania but I knew what he really meant) and I will be hands down the sweetest guy in Baltimore. I think it might be time for some changes.

That's What She Said Friday

It’s That’s What She Said Friday! This week was a really tough one. I had two excellent choices; I went back and forth all morning over which selection would make cut. Eventually I came to the decision that you guys have been really good this week and deserve a special treat. It’s a That’s What She Said double feature!

The first one comes from my friend Pat. He’s an architect, but he also happens to be an AutoCAD specialist. I’ve seen his work, it’s stellar. As a result of being better at AutoCAD than everyone else he often gets annoying requests for help from his coworkers. Enjoy the following exchange:

Co-worker- "yo...can you save that rendering on the network for me?"
Pat - frustrated because this happens a lot "fine...tell me where to save it?"
Co-worker- with an equally frustrated tone back to me "i don’t care...just put it wherever you want..."

...PAUSE...

Pat - "that’s what she said..."

BSSC is the organization that runs the social sports leagues in Baltimore (you know, where my friends and I win all the championships, except for softball this year, I don’t want to talk about it). Matt works for BSSC on the side refereeing football and volleyball, and being an official for softball and kickball. During softball season his job is to set up the fields before the games and then walk around making sure no chaos ensues. This week he was installing the bases on a field (which are held in by metal stakes driven into the dirt) with Becca when this conversation took place:

Becca - Let me show you a trick.
Becca – You have to find the hole before you hammer it in.
Matt - ---snickering---
Matt - ……
Matt - ….

He didn’t say that’s what she said. Can you believe that? What a wasted opportunity. Matt, I don’t even know you anymore.

I still hate birds

On Tuesday I ran home quickly to put on some gym clothes and grab something for work on Wednesday before heading over to Leslie’s. While inside I noticed a bird singing. It seemed awfully close. At first I thought it was my arch nemesis from the tree outside my window. Upon further inspection though I surmised that it was coming from another room. Assuming that Leanne had left the window open in her room and that’s where the noise was coming from I didn’t give it another thought and left for the night.

Yesterday I came in the apartment and went straight to the kitchen to put away some groceries. When I got to the refrigerator a bird swooped down to attack me, just missing by my head. Judging by the fact that I may have soiled myself a little bit I was pretty sure it was some sort of falcon, or maybe a bald eagle. Either way it was definitely a huge bird and it scared to poop out of me. Turns out it was one of these:

I'm a huge pussy apparently


He flew into a corner behind the microwave and the chase was on. Cut to me in a sitcom chasing a tiny bird around my house with a bucket. That little bastard was fast, and really stupid. He just kept flying back and forth from corner to corner trying to hide, and I could never reach him. He ran into the window at least three times and never noticed the gaping hole of freedom that was the open door. Finally I had to use all of my genius and cunning to solve this problem. I got him into a corner directly across from the door, then using the couch, an armchair and some cushions I created a tunnel leading right out. Once I scared him out of that corner he had no choice but to head for the door. I’m like the MacGyver of getting birds to not be in your house.

A brief update on Operation: F U Matt and Jake...

I ran 7 1/2 miles on Saturday in just under an hour. On Sunday my leg hurt. Not a good sign. That is all.

Can't complain about this...

Thanks for the shout out Express.

TWSS Friday

It's Friday. You know what that means. Today is our first ever reader submitted "that's what she said." That's right, I take reader submissions so feel free to hit me up email style and you'll be considered for this prestigious honor. On with it:

Amanda was trying to figure out how to use a flash drive for her computer.

Amanda: Where do I put this thing?
Kenny: You have to put it in the back.
(Dramatic Pause)
Kenny: That's what she said.

I wish.






PS TWSSF needs a logo, if anyone is bored and knows how to do that kind of thing have at it. I'll totally use it. The more Micheal Scott/Dwight Schrute the better.

So me and my blog are in a little bit of a blogument right now. You might say I'm in the bloghouse. You see, I totally forgot our one year blogiversary last Sunday. I know, I'm such an a hole. I tried to explain but the blog wasn't having any of it. I said, "I'm sorry blog, I've really had a lot on my mind lately, things have been real stressful at work." Which is all a lie but whatever. I said, "I'll make it up to you baby, I promise." I'm pretty sure you're suppossed to write a flowery post about how much you've grown over the last year and how much you appreciate all your readers and commenters but my blog doesn't want to hear it. Oh well, I'll just have to write some funny posts, get my stats up for a week or two and me and blog will be like peas and carrots again. Then maybe next year I'll remember my blogiversary.

Cracker Barrel

I went to Cracker Barrel last weekend. Let me give you a review. It’s awesome. I grew up in the south, and while I wouldn’t exactly say I had a very southern upbringing when I go to a place like Cracker Barrel I like to get a pretend feeling of nostalgia for the simpler times when mom rang the dinner bell and the whole family sat down at the table for a southern style home cooked meal. In reality though my mom is Irish, we ate a slab of meat and potatoes most nights, and most of the time I ate it while watching TV or playing Nintendo. But it’s nice to pretend. Also Cracker Barrel is easily the most hilarious restaurant you’ll visit. There are never less than 1,500 people waiting to be seated at a Cracker Barrel. Which is ironic because they are always in the middle of nowhere. I’m fairly certain if you’re town eclipses the 2,000 citizens mark you’re automatically banned from having a Cracker Barrel. It’s mainly tour buses full of old people and church type groups. I love this because if you’ve ever been a waiter you know that these are some of the absolute worst costumers to deal with. If you’re a patient person who doesn’t mind slow service you can just sit back and enjoy the scene. If you pay close attention you’ll notice that the entire staff always seems to be muttering as the walk away from a table. There all about more request for extra biscuits away from shooting up the place. Anyway, you’d think that the perpetual 40 minute wait would discourage you from going there, but you’re wrong friend. Cracker Barrel has you covered. Take a load off in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch and play some checkers. If you have bat ears you might even be able to hear them call your name over the “loud” speaker. If checkers doesn’t suit your fancy you can have a look around the general store. There you can find an amazing selection of denim shirts. I personally took this opportunity to purchase about 30 lbs. of “old fashioned” candy for approximately 45 cents. It was quite a deal. As I type I’m enjoy some of my Gilliam Old Fashioned Wild Cherry Drops.

The food here is spectacular. Everything is fried. You can’t go wrong with frying something. If you cut out a hunk of my ass, slathered it in buttermilk, flour, and bread crumbs I’m pretty sure I would eat it and love it. Fortunately I didn’t have to do that because Cracker Barrel has a fine selection of fried animals. I went with the chicken fried chicken. Perhaps a redundant title but who cares, smothered in gravy it’s delicious. Can someone answer me a question? Why do we bother with fine dining when I can get chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, apple sauce, cornbread, biscuits, and a lemonade for like $6? Anyone?

There was one thing that concerned me though. I think they might be taking the southern theme a little too far. The dining room was basically separated into three equal sections. We were seated the back third and couldn’t help but notice we were in the minority. Not only were all the black people seated in the same section in the back, but they were being waited on by the only black waitresses in the restaurant. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide.

That's What She Said

It's That's What She Said Friday! Let's get to it. My friend Brian was recently married. Early this week he was discussing his ring, specifically how it fit. The follow is a snippet of that conversation.

Brian: I really have to work it to get it off.
Me: That's what she said.

Indeed!

Thoughts

Just a few thoughts I've had recently:

-Headline writers have to be absolutely elated with Mike Vick's indictment. I mean imagine the pun possibilities. Their heads are on the verge of exploding just thinking about it. ESPN.com has already changed their headline three times today. All dog/dog fighting related puns. I’m totally giddy in anticipation of how hilarious this trial will be. (Also, who fights dogs? What a dick.)


-Please click on this link and read the lyrics to T-Pain’s Buy U A Drank. Seriously how is this song a hit? These might be the worst lyrics ever written. “We In The Bed Like Ooh Ooh Oh, Ooh Ooh.” Those are the words to a song. For real. You know it’s awful when you can legitimately say that Yung Joc blew T-Pain out of the water with his verse. How do you even get a record contract with this incredible lack of talent? Oh wait, I remember, T-Pain is the genius behind the classic hit “In Love Wit’ a Stripper.”

-I bet a friend on Saturday that the Yankees would make the playoffs. They are 3-0 since the bet and I remain confident in this bet, obviously my confidence has brought them confidence. Before and during the all-star break there was a lot of talk about what percentage baseball the Yankees would have to play to catch the Sox and how it was nearly impossible. Well as the season stands today, if the Red Sox were to win 95 games they need to win games at a .550 clip (the equivalent of an 89 win season). The Yankees would have to win a little under 68% (a 109 win season) of their games to keep up with that pace. While that would be an amazing pace to keep for an entire season (which the Yankees have done by the way) I don’t think it’s even remotely out of the realm of possibility for them to do it over the second half. And it would not be much of a drop off at all for the Red Sox to play .550. Oh and when they go 18-5 in their next 23 games (all against 5 of the worst 7 teams in the AL) then they only need to play .625 the rest of the year to reach 95 wins. It’s going to happen.

-Is the Who’s Now? competition on ESPN not the worst idea ever? I call it a competition for lack of a better word. I guess what it really is a way for ESPN to kill 10 minutes on Sportscenter so they aren’t forced to show WNBA highlights. How doesn’t hate this idea though? Who’s more now Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Chuck Liddell? Kobe Bryant of Ronaldinho? Tony Parker or Roger Federer? Who gives a shit? What does Now even mean? Even writers on ESPN are making fun of this. I bet the people who green lighted this idea are already fired. Everyone thinks it is dumb and yet they are forced to run it for another month because it would look worse to abandon it midway.

That's What She Said

Many years ago, long before Michael Scott of The Office brought it to such prominence in the lexicon of young people everywhere, my friend Mike (who I just realized as I’m typing this has the middle name Scott, making him Michael Scott, that’s pretty kick ass) and I decided that “that’s what she said” is just about the funniest joke ever. It juvenile, it doesn’t require a tremendous amount of wit, it is rarely appropriate and it makes me laugh almost every time. Now that the joke is approaching it’s apex in popularity, and nearly everyone I know is a huge fan of The Office, my friends have it down to a veritable art form. A conversation seldom goes more than a few minutes before someone making even the most vague innuendo is punctuated with a “that’s what she said.”

Today I decided that I needed a weekly feature for my blog. Everyone loves a good feature; it’s something to look forward to. Also it allows me to mail it in once a week. It is in this vein that I am creating That’s What She Said Friday. Each week I will present to you, the reader, the very best “that’s what she said” my friends have produced that week. Since I just thought of this and haven’t been mentally cataloging jokes for the week I’m going to dig into the “that’s what she said” archives to tell you about my favorite of all time. Here it is:

I’ll preface this one by saying Leslie doesn’t particularly enjoy “that’s what she said” as much as everyone else I know. I think it kind of annoys her how often I say it, which is what makes this one so great. She had come over to my house to pick me up to go out to eat. She parallel parked a little to close to the curb and I couldn’t open the door far enough to get in the car. The following exchange occurred:

Me: (cracking the car door) Um, I think you’re going to have to pull out.
Leslie: (faintly as I’m closing the door) That’s what she said.


There you have it, that’s the kind of magic you can be expecting on a weekly basis from now on. You’re welcome.

I might start trying again

My blog has really been shitting the bed lately. When I say my blog I literally mean my blog, not myself. I also mean figuratively, not literally. It’s obviously the blogs fault not my own. I’m still leading my usual active, fascinating lifestyle. I’m rife with interesting things to write about but my blog isn’t doing its job. Which is to inspire me to write the stories down. I sit down to write and then get distracted by other things, like being outside, or tv, or not writing a blog post. Here’s a brief list of things that you, the reader, have missed out on in the last two weeks or so because I’ve been to lazy to post:

-I saw a man spit on a little kid on the sidewalk because the kid smiled at him.

-A bird pooped on Leslie while we were out to dinner.

-I spent a weekend in Ocean City. Good stories always come out of that.

-Two good friends got married in North Carolina last weekend. Weddings are the
best, this one was no exception.

Those are just a few examples of fodder I’ve wasted. Hell, today someone handed me a free Monster Energy drink after lunch, old Eric could’ve cranked out 1,000 words on how disgusting that was alone. I’m not really sure what the problem has been. I’ve been really busy at work, but let’s face it, that never stopped me before. I think it’s just a general malaise. Who wants to write a blog post when it’s 103 degrees outside? The act of typing in itself it’s just too exhausting. But I think it’s time to rededicate myself for two reasons. The first being that I no long have a lot of work to do at work, so I’ve got some time to kill. The second one being that my one year blogging anniversary is coming up and I can’t have that go by through such a downswing. Do people even still read this anymore? Who knows.

People in Maryland have such a huge boner for Cal Ripken. What would the states indentity be without him? If you took away the Ravens, Ripken, and crabs I feel like most of Maryland would be walking around like zombies.






P.S. Somewhat real post coming later in the day potentially. I'm back bitches.

Hockey is goof for something I guess

Courtesy of Bill Simmons, the most kick ass brawl I've ever seen:





PS I know it's pretty lazy to post a Youtube video when I haven't posted anything in a week, but it's no secret, I'm very lazy.

Do I know you?

How did Lelia@Viagra_Soft.com become one of my contacts?

Ideally I wouldn't be working.

There's no such thing as an ideal day that involves me going to work, but if there were an ideal work day today would definitely fit that description. It starts with me sleeping in and showing up for work at least an hour later than normal. My office has pretty flexible work hours; generally you can show up whenever you want as long as you put in 9 hours (including an hour lunch break). I like to be home early so I usually work from 7-4. Today we have a mandatory “all hands” meeting at 4. Which means everyone stops work at for to listen to the boss talk for 20 minutes then the day is over. Well if I can show up to work whenever I want (within reason of course) and it’s mandatory that I stop working at 4, why the hell wouldn’t I just get to work at like 8:30 ensuring that I have a free 6 and a half hour work day? Well I would, and I did, so things are off to a good start. Then during my shortened work day the majority of my department is in meetings all day. Meaning there isn’t really anyone to looking over my shoulder. Meaning I’m “working” at a pretty leisurely pace this afternoon. 2 for 2 so far. “All hands” meetings are always immediately followed by an office happy hour. Of course happy hour with your coworkers usually is the lamest species of happy hour but free beer and food is something that should never be turned down. And while the flip cups tournaments in the conference room don’t happen anymore (some sort of liability issue, the boss I are going to have to agree to disagree on this matter I guess) I have some pretty enjoyable colleagues and we also have a balcony ringing our office about 25 stories up with a great view of the harbor so it’s a pretty enjoyable setting, it’s usually not a bad time, so 3 for 3. The next step in this idyllic summer work afternoon would be to walk from happy hour over to the Camden Yards will call to pick my tickets to our free luxury suites one of our friends manage to procure. 4 for 4. 2 less hours of “work”, free booze, and free baseball. Call me crazy but, for a work day, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.

What day is it again?

I morning I've been thinking that it's Tuesday. I was talking with Brian about my excitement for our softball league opening on Thursday, I said something about it being two days from now and he reminded me that it's tomorrow because today is in fact Wednesday. Is there a better feeling than that? All day you're thinking that you still have a long week ahead you, come to find out you're almost done. One day closer to the weekend. Also I'm only 14,042 days away from retirement instead of 14,043. That's only 2006 weeks! And since Wednesday already half way over I only 337,003 and a half minutes left in my career. It's ticking away so fast! Where does the time go? 20,220,480 seconds, 20,220,479 seconds, 20,220,478 seconds. Relaxation here I come. Life is good.

Someone jam a pencil in my eye please

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a little blurb about how much I hate writing resumes. I still hate doing that, but I've found something worse, my "personal statement" for a graduate school application. Here is what I'm suppossed to be writing:

Write a brief (1,000-2,000 word) statement addressing the following two questions:

1. What are your reasons for undertaking graduate study at the University of Maryland? Indicate, if appropriate, any specific areas of research interest. You may wish to discuss past work in your intended field and allied fields, your plans for a professional career, or how you developed your interest in or knowledge of your chosen subject.

2. What life experiences you have had that you feel have prepared you to pursue a graduate degree at a large, diverse institution such as the University of Maryland? Among the items you might care to include would be your financial, community and family background, whether you are the first person in your family to pursue a higher education, or any other factors that you feel would contribute to the diversity of our academic community. You may also wish to give the graduate admissions committee some examples of your determination to pursue your goals, your initiative and ability to develop ideas, and /or your capacity for working through problems independently.

Good lord do I hate this crap. What are my reasons for undertaking graduate study? Can't I just say because I like money? Would that fly? I like money, and a graduate degree will make me more money. Do you think the admissions department would respect that answer. In reality though, my company pays for school, shouldn't anyone be admitted when garuanteed money is involved? What have they got to lose? Can I just not go through the motions of the stupid essay and write you a check?

And what's the deal with question 2? Isn't it basically just asking me to tell them that I'm a minority from a poor background who is the only person who has ever gone to college? Are they recruiting for pamphlets with that question?

Anyway, I'm 72 words into my 1,000-2,000 word statement and I'm stuck. I hate this.

For the record: Bananas and Patrick Swayze do not mix well

Despite the title of this blog I haven't been thinking of much lately. I decided the best way to not let the blog die entirely it might be time for my very first guest post. Take itaway Pat:


I recently had knee surgery and for the past two weeks, I have been crutching around with a full length leg brace on. It is amazing how many people ask “wow what did you do to your knee?!” I usually try to come up with a response that makes me seem extremely masculine, adventurous, or my most favorite “the star athlete in my prime”. After weeks of lying, it is time I come clean with the truth.

It all began Halloween of 2005. I was living in New York at the time, and decided to spend a weekend in LA and attend a USC Homecoming football game. Since this coincided with Halloween, I made plans to meet up with my old roommate from college, hot metal, who was at the time living north of LA. Things were working out extremely well. Hot Metal, Dad Metal (one of hot metals buddies) and I met up as the sun was beginning to set. We each pounded a couple 40’s and got our Halloween costumes ready. These costumes came under much debate and deliberation and were not chosen lightly. Originally we thought it would be great to go as a group of penguins, we thought what ladies don’t like a fuzzy penguin. Obviously everyone else had that idea and the store was sold out. Next we thought it would be great to go as a group of giant hands and walk around “giving high fives” and throwing “giant gang signs.” That idea was quickly canned due to the lack of craftsmanship of these giant hands. Our final idea dawned on us like an epiphany. We could be a “bunch of bananas!” Brilliant! We donned our yellow uniforms and made our way to meet up with the rest of the group to begin our night.

We started at the Brass Monkey…a splendid little Karaoke bar in Korea Town, Los Angeles. Hot Metal made his way to the KJ (karaoke Jockey) booth, gave the guy a 20 and a nod, then wrote down our first request of the night “Shes like the Wind, by Patrick Swayzee. You may be most familiar with this song through its class debut in Dirty Dancing. I made a V-line to the booth…high fived the guy, gave him a 20, then began to write down our second hit classic “Escape” by Enrique Englasias. Obviously since we were such kick ass looking dudes, we were called right up to the stage.

The 3 part act began awesomely as always. In fact it was glorious as you can see from this photo




Until this lovely lady in the front row caught my eye. I sang and danced my way to her. “Feel the breath of her face…her body close to me” I was bending backwards…feeling it….she was feeling it…
Then POP!
My knee buckled and I feel to the floor. I wasn’t going to let a little slip and her laughing in my face stop this performance though. I got right back up and finished the song singing to another lady (not as lovely, but lady #1 was definitely jealous)
I started to feel the pain towards the end of the song…hobbled over to the table as the crowd cheered and panties were thrown onto the stage…and sat down nursing my knee. I was ready to go home…after 15 mins of healing my leg…I hear “LETS HEAR IT ONE MORE TIME FOR THE BANANAS…o man…I suck it up and hobble my way up for the conclusion…I am no Brittney Spears canceling my show due to health issues…I am a performer!

I finish my night with “Escape” then leave the stage in a shopping cart one of my buddies found. My buddy nick pushed my all the way home…trying to stop in each bar we passed, only to hear that Korea Town bars don’t like bananas in shopping carts. The other bananas went in the other direction to go bowling.

After I get home I noticed my knee is swollen to twice its size so I take 6 asprin and put ice on it. I lay in the bed…then a call comes in. “Hot Metal is locked in a bowling alley, it closed with him still in the bathroom! What do we do?!?!” They end up finding one of the workers going to his car, have him open the door, and he yells in a Spanish accent “BANANA….WHERE ARE YOU?!!?!?” Hot Metal came sprinting out and they made their way home.

When Hot Metal walks in the door, the D-Bag he can be sprints, and does a pile driver on my knee…doing the ultimate damage. As eyes start to fall asleep…I proclaim “I hate you Hot Metal” and hear the girl he was sleeping next to proclaim “NO TOUCHING!!”

Being on crutches for 3 weeks with a bum knee made that evening memorable!!

I then began to have severe problems with my knee, My knee kept buckling on me and I kept being placed on crutches. Each time was more humiliating than the last. From playing paddle ball with my girlfriends dad on the beach, to walking at work and bending to pick up a sheet of fallen paper, I was a broken man.

I finally had surgery where they removed a piece of chipped bone from my kneecap and gave me a dead guy’s ligament to replace my torn one.

I cant wait to sing Karaoke once more!

Ed. Note: This is likely to be my most popular post ever.

That was Money

I have an imaginary checklist of goals I hope to accomplish before I die. It’s imaginary because A. there is no physical list and B. I don’t actually know what these goals are; usually things get added to the list after the fact because I think they’re awesome. Anyway, I got to add and then mark off an item from the checklist this weekend. I got one ticket to paradise. That ticket allowed me to see one Edward Joseph Mahoney live in concert. That’s right friends, the Eddie Money. It’s hard to imagine anything be more kick ass than seeing Take Me Home Tonight live. Unfortunately Ronnie Spector wasn’t there to complete the original duet, but in her place was a special treat, Eddie’s daughter Jessy. He introduced her as Jessy Money. Really Jessy? You’re trying to have a recording career and you’re using the same fake last name as your dad? That’s pretty lame.

The crowd was an interesting mix to say the least. About 25-30% were people like me and my friends, people in their mid 20’s who enjoy 80’s music, but more than anything enjoy how cheesy it all is. Seriously, I was cracking up the entire time, how could you not? Another 35-40% was hardcore Eddie Money fans. People were buying his albums in the 70’s and 80’s. Just white trash central. There is nothing better than seeing an incredibly trashy woman in her late 40’s who you just know was a crazy Money groupee 25 years ago. I doubt his fans have names, but they really should call themselves Moneyacs. Or Moniacs, whatever it doesn’t matter. I really wanted to buy an Eddie Money t-shirt and immediately cut the sleeves off. They rest of the crowd was there for an entirely different, dreamier reason. The headlining act was Rick Springfield, and there were a lot of older woman there ready to swoon over Dr. Noah Drake. And swoon they did.

One thing was pretty surprising. Eddie Money, despite not putting out a hit record in over 20 years has 6 or 7 recognizable hits that a 26 year old like myself can rock hard to, but one hit wonder Springfield puts on a way better show. And no, he didn’t play Jessy’s Girl on repeat for an hour. It’s pretty easy to see why though. They’re both 57 but Mr. Money has done some hard living in his days. All the drugs and rockstar living has really taken a toll. He’s like a dead man on stage. Although he still had enough life left in him to really nail the requisite 80’s saxophone solo. And I still did a lot of fist pumping. Dr. Drake on the other hand has really been keeping himself together. He was running around like a maniac. I was shocked to find out how old he was. He did half of the concert in the crowd, climbing over seats and playing the guitar while crowd surfing. I was pleasantly surprised with how entertaining it was. I would seriously recommend a Rick Springfield concert; it doesn’t even really matter if you’ve only heard one song of his before.

Throw in Scandal as the opening act and you have a real cheeseball 80’s bonanza. Not quite enough for me to get over missing Huey Lewis and the News last Monday though. That one’s still on the list.

Regi's

This is the scene at Regi's yesterday (a restaurant on Light St. a very short walk from my house):



Leslie and I attempted to have lunch there a few weeks ago and they extremely rude and not at all helpful. Eventually we just left after waiting for a table in a half empty restaurant for about 20 minutes. I was pretty annoyed and probably wouldn't have eaten there as a result of there rudeness, but I also didn't really think they deserved a Honda Accord in front of the place. Leslie on the other hand had this to say: "those jerks. they had it coming." She's the best.

Softball

Yesterday may have been the single most embarrassing moment of my athletic career. I strike out, playing slow pitch softball. How is that even possible? It’s one of those leagues where you start an at-bat with a 1-1 count. I fouled the first pitch down the line, then tried to muscle up on the next pitch and swung and missed. Really how is that possible? I mean, as Brian said, the pitcher clearly reached back for a little extra. It appeared he hit at least 30 or 32 on the radar gun. And I don’t know if you can throw a splitter underhand but it definitely broke a little down and in. What I’m trying to say is that this guy was nasty. Or not, because it’s slow pitch softball for Christ’s sake. I definitely wanted to hang up the spikes after that one. I once made 5 errors in a game in college and I was less and embarrassed than striking yesterday. Are you allowed to bunt in softball? If so I’m sticking with that from now on.

I can crack my own back thank you very much

I have never used any sort of chapstick or lip balm. It seems completely unnecessary. My lips become chapped two, maybe three times each winter, and while it’s unpleasant it isn’t something so horrible that I need apply any type of salve, it goes away on its own in a few days. Also how many people do you know constantly use lip balm? I don’t think that I am some sort of statistical anomaly; I don’t have super lips that are resistant to chafing and dryness. So if my lips are only chapped a few times a year that would lead me to believe that it is the same for most people. So why the chapstick everyday? Clearly its habit forming, which is another reason I would never bother with it. The point is that it is something you never knew you needed until you used it, you would’ve been perfectly fine without it, and now you’ve formed a habit that you can’t stop because it’s almost unconscious on some levels.

I feel the same way about chiropractors. I’ve always been very skeptical of those guys. I’m sure they can provide temporary relief of certain back pain, but I doubted that they truly provided solutions to many back problems. It’s the same thing as chapstick, cracking your back feels great, but it’s not healing anything and you’re only going to have to continue, with greater frequency. My skepticism of the chiropractic industry was somewhat confirmed this week.

Leslie has been having a lot of back pain for the last few weeks and decided to make an appointment with a chiropractor to see if she could resolve the problem. Monday she went and got a few x-rays taken. While waiting in the lobby I happened to notice the receptionist seemed to know all the other patients really well. Someone would walk in the door and a receptionist would say something like, “Oh Mr. Johnson you seem to be making it in a lot earlier than usual did you find a new route?” That was sort of strange to me, I know over time you can get to know the people in a doctors office fairly well, and they know you, but should they know you well enough to notice subtle changes in your routine? That set off the radar a little bit. When her appointment was over she set up another consultation for the next day to review the x-rays. He told her that in the mean time to ice her back, don’t use any heat, that she may need to be fitted for orthotics (or something, I have no idea what that means), and a few other basic treatments. He gave that same advice to three other patients. That set off a few more blips on the radar screen. So you’re telling me that all the patients have the same problem and need to be treated in the same manner? That seems unlikely. Upon her visit the next day she received a packet with the chiropractors proposed treatment plan. I expected it to be sort of stretching regimen, maybe some kind of realignment or massage maybe. Nope, after one half an hour visit it was determined that Leslie needed to schedule 50 more appointments as a course of therapy for her aching back. So that’s why everyone knew each other so well. He said she has a subluxation*, which apparently everyone who goes to a chiropractor has, and that he recommends she come three times a week for five weeks eventually tapering down to once a week, 50 appointments in total. I don’t think victims of some sort of paralyses have that many physical therapy appointments before they can walk again**, who in their right mind would do that for a back ache. I don’t think chiropractors are in the business of hurting people, but they don’t seem to be in the business of healing people either, its seems as though the goal is to make people feel better until it gets the point where they think they can only feel better if they continue to give a chiropractor money.




*Word doesn’t even recognize subluxation as a work, and it’s spelled correctly, should this be another red flag?

**That is pretty insensitive to victims of paralyses, but I’m trying to make a point here.

Resumes

I hate writing resumes. It's the absolute worst. The fact that I am currently writing a blog post is evidence of how much I hate writing resumes, because it's 10:54 and I really need to be done with this resume by noon and I just can't bring myself to finish. Despite the fact that I have an entire blog devoted to talking about myself I really hate talking about myself. There is something about the bullshit you have come up with in a resume that I seem to be adverse to. I struggle mightily with the proper phrasing to make what I do sound interesting and impressive. It always result in me having the worst resume ever. Which makes me hate them even more.

Irritainment

I have a standard routine I run through every morning once I arrive in the office. I check my various email accounts, my bank account, my stat tracker (because what blogger isn’t secretly, or not so secretly, obsessed with the stats), then I look at my different fantasy leagues to set lineups and other related activities. I think that’s something pretty common to most people, no one comes into work and gets cracking immediately, it’s not possible. Don’t lie. The last part of my routine is to read washingtonpost.com and espn.com to peruse a few of the headlines, check the box scores, and see if anything else peaks my interest. Lately though there has been slight change, or addition, to the routine which can probably be blamed for my recent blog inactivity. ESPN has added a comment section to many of its articles and I’m absolutely fascinated by it. I’m not very smart as a whole but there are a few subjects I have a fair amount of expertise on and one of them is sports, baseball in particular*. Because of this knowledge these comment section leave me utterly fascinated and thoroughly entertained. I have a slight knowledge of cancer but you don’t see me on oncology message boards telling people about chemotherapy so why are there so many clueless a holes who post on these baseball message boards? It’s incredible, a solid 85% of comments are totally asinine, and I love it.

I realized this morning that I actually seek out these comments because it pisses me off how stupid most of the people are. That got me thinking about this phenomenon as a whole. It’s been called irritainment by people who are cleverer with words than me. Our society can’t seem to turn away from media sources, be it television, radio, websites, blogs, that drive us absolutely insane. It’s certainly not new but it is something that seems to have spiraled completely out of control lately. I’m really confused about what we get out of this though, it’s sort of creates a negative view of the society when we can’t just accept things we enjoy, we need to be stimulated by things we hate. People constantly complain about what despicable people Paris Hilton, or Britney Spears, or Lindsey Lohan are, but Perez Hilton gets millions of hits a day on his blog because people eat there lives up. They have to know what they done now to screw up. The sports equivalent of that would be the Yankees/Red Sox. People who aren’t fans of the teams constantly complain about this rivalries coverage and hype. They call it an east coast bias and declare that baseball is in fact played west of New York, yet the comment section of an article relating to one of these teams easily reaches 100-200 a day while most other articles rarely receive more than 10 or 15. How many people have declared how sick they are of hearing about Barry Bonds and yet and article about his older brother received over 500 comments yesterday. The point is that most people gain far more entertainment hating Bonds or the Yankees than they do rooting for their own favorite teams. If they didn’t have these things to criticize its likely their interest in the entire sport would wane quickly.

I’m fairly certain that VH1’s entire original programming strategy is based around the viewer wanting to throw up after every show they watch. Did anyone watch I Love New York for any other reason than to hate all the characters on that show? We love watching disgraceful, unintelligent, uncultured people on television. It even spills over into politics. How many liberals watch Fox News just to further develop their hatred off Sean Hannity and Bill O’Rielly? How many republications switch to MSNBC to see examples of a liberal media bias? Actually probably not many, they don’t need evidence because those aforementioned republican pundits told them so, but you see my point.

Can anyone explain irritainment to me in a way I can understand? Is there a feeling of superiority we gain from ingesting so much that makes us angry? I don’t get it, but hey, maybe if there are enough comments on this post we’ll provide some pleasure for people who hate me and all my readers!






* Although, as Matt and Jason can attest, my misinterpretation of a rule the other day was kind of embarrassing and makes me question that knowledge.

A Wile E. Coyote Production?

This has got to be the worst terrorist plot in the history of terrorism. Just a couple of guys, affiliated with no terrorist organization, sitting around masturbating to pictures of Osama Bin Laden who think it would be neat to participate in a jihad. They’ve seen some of those super cool training videos of future suicide bombers playing on jungle gyms and think it would be totally awesome to make one of their own. They’re whisked off for a romantic weekend in the Pocono’s for some firearms training. They make their awesome video, but realizing that VHS is a dying format, they decide to go to their local video store to have it converted it to DVD (it makes it easier to post it on Youtube), apparently not realize that they actually have to watch what they’re converting. Undeterred they formulate a plot. They’re going to attempt to storm a US MILITARY BASE and kill “as many soldiers as possible.” They decided on Fort Dix in southern Jersey. What was the basis of this decision? Dude, I delivered so many pizzas down there I know it like the palm of my hand. I also think Fort Dix made them giggle every time they said it, which was another determining factor. Clearly they failed to factor in that 5 guys storming a base containing thousands of soldiers using only a couple of assault rifles stand to last about 34 seconds before they’re all riddled with bullets. It’s cool though, as one of the conspirators stated, “it doesn’t matter. I’m doing it in the name of Allah.” It’s pretty hard to see the logic in this. How is shooting three or four soldiers before dying yourself further your cause in any way? I don’t get it. It’s a pretty scary scenario when 5 seemly average men who are living a relatively good life in America can still hate Americans to the point of taking this kind of action. How much more of this can we expect?

I have two orders of business to take care of in this post. One markedly more serious than the other. So why put them in the same post? Because that's how I roll.

In March my friend Wendy's niece Cora was diagnosed with a Wilm's tumor. Wendy and a few other people are running marathons as a way to raise money, which will be donated to the children's hospital in which she is being treated. Check out the page Wendy set up for more details. Anything would help so I'm thanking you in advance. Plus lets be honest, you know you'd get a good feeling donating money for kids with cancer, its a win win. Do it.

On a lighter note check this out. Vote for Alexis, she's good people. Ok, I haven't actually met her, but her best friend is a good friend of mine and she good people, making Alexis good people by association. Plus if she wins I will obviously take credit as a result of all the votes pouring in from my blog and I can't see any scenario where that would be bad for me.

I'm taking applications

I feel like I need some sort of advisor. Someone to be the voice of reason when my decision making process goes astray. And let’s face it; I make a lot of bad decisions so it would be useful to have a little angel on my shoulder in certain situations. A life coach of sorts. Plus I kind of want to have an entourage. That would be awesome. This person’s job would be to say things like:

Hey you’re drinking those beers kind of fast, pace yourself, you know you have to go to work tomorrow right?

Or

No buddy, put the phone back in your pocket, you’re drunk

Or

Just because that girl is buying you a shots doesn’t mean you have to drink them

Or

Hey guy, it’s like 2:30 in the morning in you have to be up for work in a few hours, maybe you should get some sleep

Or

Eric, its 7:45 and you still appear to be pretty drunk; maybe you should go into work a little late today.

Or

Um, Eric, where’d your belt go? You might need that.

I feel like this person would be a huge asset. I can hardly think for myself so it would be nice to have someone do it for me.

A New Curse?

There is no getting around the fact that the Yankees have been horrendous to start the season; 9-14 in April, 6.5 games behind the Red Sox at the end of the first month. This has led to a lot of speculation over the weekend that Joe Torre could lose his job, which is a ridiculous idea. This story was clearly a fabrication of the New York media desperate to rattle a few cages and create a story where there isn’t one. I guess since Alex Rodriguez is smiling, hitting home runs, and not sunbathing shirtless in central park that have to talk about something. The pitching staff is decimated by injury. In the first season series with the Red Sox the team put up 6, 5, and 6 runs and were swept. With a healthy staff that type of run support is worth at least two wins. I don’t think Joe Torre should be taking the blame for Carl Pavano faking another injury (PS that guy has the heart of a jellyfish). There have been claims that he has mismanaged the bullpen also but what is a manager supposed to do when their starters can’t make it out of the 5th? Mike Myers is not a two inning pitcher. Mike Myers is good for two things: getting one lefty out a game and doing hilarious Scottish accents. I mean, when you’re forced to trot out Colter Bean in a close game you know things aren’t going well.

But wait, there’s a silver lining to all the injuries, a ray of light is peeking through the clouds, Phil Hughes is coming up to replace an injured starter. The best Yankee pitching prospect since He Who Must Not Be named (even though I can’t say his name I will because I realize not everyone is a big a fan as I am, I’m talking about Brien Taylor, I just wanted to emphasize what a disaster he was) is coming up to save the day. And at the same time Chien-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina, and Jeff Karstens are coming off the disabled list to finally fill out the rotation. Boy things are looking up. Oh wait what’s that, Jeff Karstens broke his leg on the first pitch of the game Sunday? That sucks but he’s only the 5th starter, he can be replaced. Besides Phil Hughes is throwing a gem tonight. A no hitter into the 7th and he’s absolutely carving up the Texas Rangers. SON OF A BITCH. He pulled his hamstring and is out 4 to 6 weeks. Christ. Hey Yankees training staff, what did I just say? Are we sure the Yankees aren’t the cursed team now? I’m still not convinced that Johnny Damon wasn’t some sort of secret Red Sox agent sent over to covertly ruin the Yankees.