Things I Think About...

Here are some things I thought about today:

-- You know how you know when it’s springtime in Baltimore? When the entire city smells like rotting fish after a storm. I don’t know what causes it but I do that rain stirs up some of the foulest smelling shit you can imagine. It makes being outside somewhat unpleasant.

-- I had lunch at 5 Guys today. If you’ve ever been there you know how they handle their ordering system, you order, you get a number, when your order is ready, they call that number. Pretty simple right? You also know that they only make one thing: cheeseburgers. Which makes the process even more simple. So can someone please explain to me how they get up to order number 72 before making my order, number 58? How is that even possible? How do 14 people get there order before mine? I know what they ordered, cheeseburgers. So how the f could my cheeseburger possibly take 20 minutes longer to make then the cheeseburger ordered directly before and after me? I’m not a mathematician, and I’ve never worked in the food service industry, but something tells me you have to have a whole team of idiots working the kitchen to get things that screwed up.

-- Is it acceptable to wear hideous shoes if it’s for a good cause? For every purchase made Tom’s Shoes gives a pair to a needy child in some third world country. I know; that’s awesome right? Here’s the problem: they really are pretty awful. I sort of hate them but at the same time I kind of love them. And really, if anyone can make it work I can so maybe I’ll just get some. Plus I’ll feel good about myself when I wear them knowing that some little kid out there is wearing ugly shoes also because of me.

That is all, have a nice day. And if you’re in Baltimore don’t breathe to deeply.

He's on Fire...

I just now realized that it has been two and a half weeks since I lasted posted anything on the blog. I didn’t even notice this, sorry about that. I have a good excuse though, its springtime. There’s been too much roof deck, and pool, and happy hour, and baseball games. To blog means I would have to come inside and not enjoy the beautiful weather. Although that is slightly counterintuitive, a more active lifestyle leads to less blogging. You’d think it would be the other way around. Anyway, to make it up to you I’ve decide to regale you with a story about how badass I am.

Over the weekend I got in an argument with some friends. The general thesis of the argument being that baseball is a more difficult sport to play than basketball. Obviously I was on the side of baseball. The argument became mildly heated (not heated in the, we’re about to come to blows sense, but heated in the, we’re talking way too loud in the bar sense. Because I mean really who gets in fights) for several reasons. The first be because we were drunk, which is a given, does anyone really argue about these types of things sober? Because we were drunk there was no resolution to argument simply because we were disputing two separate points. I was arguing that there is more skill involved in hitting and fielding a baseball and they were arguing that basketball players are more athletic, which was not the point of the disagreement. The main gist of the argument was that I was clearly right, and they were clearly wrong, but refused to accept this fact. I find this to be pretty common in arguments that I’m in, I’m always right and no one will just acknowledge that. And that is why my arguments never die, because f that, I refuse to lose, especially when I’m right. Which is most of the time.

The fight raged on until they bet me $100 that I couldn’t make 25 out of 100 three pointers. Bear in mind that I haven’t played basketball in years, and shooting a basketball is not at all like riding a bike. It’s one of those things that, the more you shoot, the better you are, but like I said, I don’t like to lose an argument so I had no choice but to take the bet.

The saying goes that there are only two certainties in life, but I’m adding a third one: death, taxes, and I’m awesome. I won with 30 shots to spare thus proving my point that basketball is easier. Here is the question though, I need to gloat, what can I buy with their $100 that will sufficiently taunt them?

Twitter is ruining my storytelling ability...

Homeless guy threatened to kill me for smiling and then a dog tried bite me.

What fuck is happening today?

Dogs usually love me. And homeless people. I'm disturbed.

Thats all I got.

Save Gate 2

I don't really talk much about sports on this blog. Mainly because the majority of my life is consumed with sports so it's nice to not have it invade everything I do. And I also believe, as I've mentioned before I'm sure, that there a lot of people who do it better than myself*. I have mention though that I am a Yankees fan (commence hating me..... now). As such I obviously have an opinion on the new stadium**, which I won't get into because it's there are just to many layers and I'm far to lazy to spend the time it take to make that post coherent.

I just want to mention that I think this is a really cool idea and I hope they can make it happen. Seeing as I'm the type that watches a movie like Saving Private Ryan and thinks more about what a tragedy it is that all of those old buildings in France were destroyed than the war going on I think it's safe to say I like the idea of preserving history. I also love monuments, no matter what they are commemorating. Who doesn't.

I can already hear the complaints about the Yankees and New York City using even more tax payer money to preserve part of a stadium that shouldn't have been torn down in the first place, but f that, in 10 years those same people will be talking about how nice it is to have an attractive element making a nice park so distinct in one of the shittiest neighborhoods in America.



*Not many though, actually writing about sports is right in my wheelhouse and I'm probably better at that than anything else I do, but whatever, I don't want a sports blog.

**I don't like, but I'll reserve full judgement until I actually go there in July.

Hola

Remember that post I wrote a few weeks ago about St. Patricks day? The one that drew a small bit of ire?

Well ditto for Cinco de Mayo.

FU May

This is bullshit May, get it together.



www.nataliedee.com

Nature

Since the weather in the Greater Baltimore Area was so glorious this weekend I did a little bit of hiking. I went to a local state park that I did not know existed until Saturday. I climbed a few rocks. Took in the majesty of a waterfall or two. Perhaps I waded through the rapids of a stream. You know, nature stuff.

While walking on a particularly woodsy trail I came across a family. Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter, Grandma, and Friend of Daughter. Oh, and there was a cockapoo loving life chasing squirrels and such. I thought, how delightful, I like to see a family bonding together through glorious scenery. Upon further inspection I noticed that the Dad had a garbage bag. And the two little girls were running around picking up old cases of beer and soda cans and whatever else happened to be lying around. I was stunned. Who does that? An entire family gave up there Saturday to clean up the park.

It makes me happy to know that there are better people than myself doing good deeds. Cause God knows that’s a little too much to ask of me.

Ninjas

No, no, no, you’re doing it all wrong.

First of all, I’m pretty sure a ninja would not rob a convenience store; they’re a little too cunning for petty theft. Plus I’m pretty sure they’re purpose is assassinations, not robbing a gas station for $60. Secondly, it defeats the entire purpose of being a ninja if you’re just going to take your mask off. They wear masks for a reason, it’s called stealth dumbass. And a ninja wouldn’t run from the police, they would just blend into the potato chip aisle and become invisible (although a real ninja wouldn’t have to run from the police, they never would have been seen in the first place, remember the whole stealth thing). Lastly, ninjas don’t ask for anything, they just kill people and take it, get right idiot.

This guy clearly flunked out of ninja school after like two weeks. Maybe he needs to do a little more ninja research.

Seriously though, how awesome is this guy? I can just imagine his thought process:

“Bro, I’m totally out of crystal meth and I don’t have any money or a job. What am I going to do? (Light bulb flashes over head) I know, ninjas are awesome and everyone is scared of them right? I’ll dress in all black and take my samurai sword to the dry cleaners and they’ll just hand over the cash. Bro, I am wicked smaaaaaaaaaht.”

This is sort of like dressing up in your Darth Vader costume and tried to hold up a McDonalds with a toy light saber.

Nice Try Virus

I never get sick. I really can’t remember the last time I had even a minor illness. I mean, I have a terrible memory so it could have been a few months ago, but I don’t think so, I’m pretty sure it’s been a few years. It’s a fact I like to gloat about often.* My roommate is the complete opposite, he’s always sick, and I rub his face in it whenever possible.

In early February I went skiing with a bunch of people one of whom had some sort of virus that spread to almost everyone there. Everyone but me. These are the instances that validate my awesomeness at not getting sick. And again I took that as an opportunity to revel in my own glory.

That is why I was so thrown off yesterday morning when I woke up with the worst sore throat ever. I’m mildly certain that someone took a cheese grater to my vocal chords. Then I started to get achy throughout the day. I thought it might have been a chink in the armor. Was I actually going to have to take some sort of over the counter medicine? I never take medication, it invalidates my whole existence. I decided to ride it out for a night and see how I felt in the morning. And you’ll be happy to know that I feel totally better. You can stop panicking and return to your normal lives. My immune system is a total badass.






*Like how I can start the first 5 sentences of a paragraph with the letter I. I never cease to amaze myself.

Arrrgh?

There is a pirate festival in Fells Point this weekend. Would it be too racist if I dressed up in black face and went as a Somali pirate?

Trying Times

Yesterday was a really tough day for me. Have you ever just had one of those days that you can barely handle because it’s so full of misery and sorrow? It doesn’t happen to me very often but yesterday was one of those days. I was only just holding back tears most of the afternoon.

It all started when I watched a video of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent. If you don’t get a little misty watching that then you might want to check for a soul, because I don’t think you have one. That crazy ass lady has the voice of an angel.

Then I got home from work and Rudy was on TV. I’m pretty certain that over the last decade I’ve dealt with more anguish over this movie than any of my relationships combined. “Who’s the wild man now?” It gets me every time.

As if that wasn’t enough during a commercial break in Rudy they aired one of those ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLachlan. How can you not get choked up by all those dogs and cats with the missing limbs and the crusty eyes? It’s just a lot to take.

On top of all that the Yankees got beat so bad an outfielder had to pitch. Way to pile it on God.

I’m actually pretty shocked I was able to get out of bed today. Clearly I have a lot more inner strength than I thought.

A List

In the engineering world we sometimes use weird phrases. Without further ado:

A Brief List of Terms I’ve Heard Around the Office That Can Be Construed as Vaguely and/or Blatantly Sexual:


-Load rating
-Erection
-Con Box
-Jack Off
-Reverse Cowgirl*



*That one wasn’t work related.

Twitter Me This...

The other day I was discussing Twitter with a friend and I think we had similar feelings on the subject. I simply don’t understand the point of it at all.

I know I’m fairly late on this bandwagon and it’s probably been talked about ad nauseam but I’m sure there are 3 or 4 people who read this blog that don’t know what it is so I’ll give a brief explanation. All it is a website where you send 140 character maximum messages, or “tweets”, to people who “follow” your Twitter page. And those “followers” can reply to your “tweets”. It’s basically Facebook, stripped of everything but your status updates, only you can make it completely public to anyone. It’s like having a set email contact list in which to send all your inane thoughts and I really don’t get it.

I understand the irony of someone who writes a blog about the excruciating minutia of his everyday life being perplexed by this phenomenon but I just don’t comprehend why people are into this. At least in a blog post I have more than 140 characters to formulate an idea, complete a thought and attempt (usually in vain) to be somewhat funny or intelligent. I generally agree with the adage brevity is the soul of wit, but this is taking it to a new level. I kind of feel like the evolution of social networking sites coincides with the devolution of conversation and literature. Why bother actually talking to friends when you can just follow their tweets? And who needs to read when you can get all your information from the CNN twitter page? Never mind that there is barely room for a grammar and punctuation in 140 characters much less the ability to tell a full story.

I’m not one to write something off without giving it a chance though, so in the name of science I’m creating my own account. Who knows, maybe there are some unknown aspects that make it super awesome. Maybe I can get more friends involved and it actually becomes enjoyable. We’ll see. If you are into twitter yourself, and you feel so inclined, you can follow me here. Get ready for a lot of “tweets” about Kate from Lost or about how many beers I’ve had on any particular night. It should be pretty riveting.

Play Ball...

It's Opening Day, one of the best days of the year. I could wax poetic for a few thousands words on how metaphorical it is that it's raining in Baltimore right now but the storm is forecasted to break right before the first pitch. You know winter and all and baseball representing the hopefulness of spring. I mean, no one can romanticize baseball like me. Except for maybe Bob Costas. But I'm not going to do that because I have tickets to the game and I'm excited so I think I'm going to leave work early and get a beer or 8 and not write anything today. Here's a something about Opening Day instead*, go Yankees:

Opening DayGenesis.

BY GLENN BIRKEMEIER
- - - -
In the big inning, God created Heaven on Earth. And it was without form, and void. God separated the dirt from the grass. He called the grass Outfield and the dirt He called Infield. God made the Infield a 90-foot square and the Outfield not less than 400 feet to center and 320 feet down the lines. He declared this Fair Territory. All other territory, God then declared, was Foul.

And God divided the players into two teams of nine players each, under direction of a manager, to play The Game on His field. God called some of these players Pitchers and some of them Hitters. He placed a Pitcher precisely 60 feet 6 inches from a Hitter. Then God commanded that it's one, two, three strikes you're out at the ol' Ballgame.

And God granted jurisdiction of The Game to lesser Gods, whom He called Umpires. God said the Umpires are infallible, blessed with Heavenly authority, whose judgment is not to be questioned under penalty of expulsion from The Game. And God looked at his creation and He was pleased. Then God created the Infield Fly Rule to confuse nonbelievers.

And God said, Let there be light beer, and there was. And, God said, let there be peanuts and hot dogs and overpriced souvenirs and let there be frosty chocolate malts with little wooden spoons that you can buy nowhere else except at this Heaven, which God called a Ballpark, and there was. God looked at His creation and it was good.

And the Lord God formed, from the dust, a collection of elite players in His own image. The Lord God then breathed the breath of life into His creation. God called this creation the National League.

And God said, It is not good for the National League to be alone. The Lord God shall make it a mate. And thus, while the National League slept, God took several of its top players and created the American League.

And God blessed The Game, saying, Be fruitful and multiply. Put teams in every city with deserving fans, God added, even if this occurs at the expense of starting-pitching depth.

From time to time, God understood, The Game would be corrupted by the Serpent. The Serpent was more cunning than any other beast and he would take many wicked forms: the Black Sox, segregation, the Designated Hitter, the Reserve Clause, dead balls, juiced balls, spit balls, corked bats, George Steinbrenner, AstroTurf, the 1981 strike, collusion, lockouts, Pete Rose, the 1994 strike, greenies, cocaine, HGH, Andro, steroids, $20 parking, corporate mallparks, Scott Boras, Donald Fehr, and Bud Selig.

But, God said, the goodness in The Game shall always prevail. As needed, the Lord shall bestow upon The Game a Savior. And the Savior, like the Serpent, can take many forms. The Savior shall remind Fans how blessed The Game truly is. The Savior shall be called by many names, including Cy, Matty, Honus, Big Train, the Babe, Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Lou Gehrig, Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson, Buck O'Neil, Hank Greenberg, Red Barber, Harry Carey, Vin Scully, Jack Buck, Satchel Paige, Bill Veeck, Roberto Clemente, Ernie Banks, Hammerin' Hank, Cool Papa, Dizzy, Lefty, Whitey, Stan the Man, Big Klu, the Say Hey Kid, Campy, Duke, the Mick, the Splendid Splinter, the Gas House Gang, the Big Red Machine, the Damn Yankees, Pudge Fisk, Pudge Rodriguez, Yaz, Pops, the Wizard of Oz, Fernando, George Brett, Moonlight Graham, Roy Hobbs, Wild Thing Vaughn, Bingo Long, the Ryan Express, Donnie Baseball, Rickey, Eck, the Big Unit, the Cactus League, Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn, Camden Yards, Rotisserie Drafts, Web Gems, Derek Jeter, Dontrelle Willis, Vlad Guerrero, and, from the Far East, Ichiro. And, God guaranteed, there are many more to come.

God looked upon His creation and He was very pleased. And God spoke, yelling, PLAY BALL!

*And Easter is coming up. Topical, sort of. Not really actually. Pretend this footnote isn't here.

April Fool's Day

I spent a good portion of last night (at least 4 minutes) trying to think of a good April Fool’s Day joke that I could use as post today. It is a lot harder than you would think. I couldn’t come up with anything all that isn’t either so obviously fake that it wouldn’t fool anyone, or too insensitive to actually be funny. I thought about carrying yesterdays posts into today and saying that I did end up getting laid off, but I don’t think that would be appropriate considering almost 750,000 people lost their jobs last month. Plus that would be tempting fate; I don’t need any bad karma. A friend of mine said I should tell everyone I have cancer. So he wins the award for the least funny April Fool’s Day joke ever.

In the end I gave up trying to be clever and fool anyone, instead I’m just going to post a picture of David Ortiz to show how much he looks like Florida from Good Times.

Suck on that Red Sox fans.

My Apparent Storage Facility

When I got to work this morning there was a hand truck in my cubicle. I have no idea who put it there. But combine that with the box someone left in my cubicle last Thursday and I started to get a bit of an uneasy feeling. It would lead one to believe that these are not so subtle hints about my job security. If there is some sort of release form on my desk tomorrow I’m not going to be happy at all.

Of course then I started looking around and realized that there is a clipboard on my desk that is not mine. And a set of plans for a job I’ve never worked on. Basically people are just dropping their shit on my desk because it’s at the end of a row and they’re too lazy to put things where they belong. My cubicle has apparently become a storage facility, document control, and a trash can all in one. I might have to set up some surveillance, and if I catch the culprit there is going to be hell to pay. By hell obviously I mean that all my future trash and recycling is going on their desk, trust me you want no part of that*.



*It’s actually obscene how much paper I go through in a week at work. I’m personally responsible for the destruction of hundreds of old growth forests in the northwest.

Reasons Why I Might Be Moving to the Suburbs Sooner Than Expected

Here is a fun story, fortunately I wasn’t home for this encounter so I’m relaying it to you as told to me by my roommate:

While lying in bed he hears the doorknob rattling then a banging on the door. He goes downstairs to investigate and a woman, who by appearances seems to be homeless and/or a drug addict (possibly inaccurate, but sometimes you can judge a book by its cover), sees him through the stained glass window and starts pounding on the door. The following conversation ensues*:

Crazed Woman: Open the door!
Aaron: No.
CW: I’m being chased, let me in.
Aaron: I’m not opening the door.
CW: Can you give me an old pair of tennis shoes or something?
Aaron: I’m not doing that.
CW: Call the cops.
Aaron: Gladly (already on the phone with them)

Once it had been established the cops had been called she left and tried to open the doors of all the other houses on our block. A few minutes later he heard sirens and poked his head out of the door and saw 2 ambulances and paramedics attending to someone two blocks north of our house.

If the ambulances were not on the scene for the same woman then it was an amazing coincidence so I’m going to assume it was her. And if it was her there are really only two scenarios I can envision in which she would need an ambulance.

1. She was hit by a car crossing O’Donnell Street (which, for you people not familiar with Baltimore, is a two lane street but one of the more heavily traffic roads through the neighborhood).

2. She really was being chased and whoever was chasing her caught her and accomplished there goal.

Obviously this is all speculation (I couldn’t find a story about it on any local websites) either way though it makes me pretty uncomfortable for numerous reasons. You never want to see any sort of crime your neighborhood, nor do you ever want to see someone injured or killed in a tragic accident. I also find it to be a little upsetting that we live in a society so untrusting, and a city with so much crime, that when a woman seems to be in peril you can’t actually believe her enough to help. I would have done the exact same thing in my roommate’s situation. My first thought would not have been this person clearly needs help. I would have immediately thought this is some kind of scheme to get me to unlock the door so I can be bum rushed by 5 guys in the alley and have all of my stuff stolen. That seems wrong, but that’s the way it is around here. Especially considering some friends opened their door a few months ago to find a woman with a couple of bullets in her head.

Baltimore has a certain reputation for safety (or lack thereof) around the country. It’s probably a deserved reputation considering there were over 230 murders last year; and that represents a significant decrease in the murder rate. The statistics are a little deceiving though. If you look at this map you’ll notice that the murders are fairly segregated to the north and west portions of the city. If you live anywhere in the vicinity of the harbor you’re generally safe. There weren’t even many robberies or burglaries. But it seems like lately criminals have been getting wise to the fact that there is less of a police presence and no police cameras, and if you’re planning on killing someone you have a better chance of not being witnessed if you drive 10 minutes south and do it there. Two incidents hardly make a pattern but if this rate picks up it’s going to expedite my migration to the suburbs. Especially if my mom reads this post.


*I’m paraphrasing obviously, I wasn’t there.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Remember channel surfing? I do. Before the advent of digital cable, when you only had 30 or 40 channels, I would flip through all the channels endlessly until I found something to watch. I could go through all the channels 4 or 5 times before finally settling on something. My mom hated it, she would always yell at me, “just find something and leave it dammit,” but it didn’t bother me in the least. It’s a generational thing I would imagine. I mean, when she was growing up she only had 3 or 4 channels to choose from so I could see how this would drive her insane. The only other way to find something to watch back then though was to look in the TV listings that came in the Sunday paper every week and that’s sort of like reading, which ruins TV.

Thankfully we don’t have to worry about this anymore; if you have cable then you have the accompanying guide, which is less like reading because it’s reading the TV, so it’s ok. No more channel flipping. Just push a button, find something to watch and watch it, everyone’s happy. You even get a brief synopsis of every program to make the choice easier for you.

That last feature is fairly useless to me but I still appreciate their benefit. I don’t watch a ton of TV* and what I do watch I already know when and where it can be found. And if I do branch out from my comfort zone to watch a movie or something I usually have an idea of what that movie is about and if I want to bother watching it or not. Occasionally though, when I’m really bored and there’s nothing else going on, I come across a random movie summary that just seems so outrageous there’s no way I could turn away. For example, I was searching through last week and saw this:

The Number One Girl – (2005) Tony Schiena, Vinnie Jones. Carnage ensues when a gangster asks a martial artist to judge a beauty pageant

What the what? How could I not watch that? I mean I couldn’t even begin to imagine how all of those plot points could come together to make a coherent movie. And I have to tell you guys, it was terrible, and I wouldn’t give back a second of that time. There are bad movies, and then there are movies so terrible and wrought with unintentional comedy that you can’t turn away. I’m not even going to tell you about it because I don’t want to ruin for you.

Later that same week I came across this:

MVP: Most Valuable Primate – (2000) A deaf girl befriends a runaway chimp who plays hockey.

Again an amazing summary, although this one did not deliver the goods, it was just the normal kind of bad. When the best actor in a movie is a chimpanzee it’s never a good sign. That chimp could seriously emote though; he was acting his ass off.



*Technically this isn’t true, my TV is almost always on when I’m home, but more often than not it’s just background noise while I’m reading things on the internet or I’m watching sports. Neither of which count in my definition of “watching TV”.

Happy Mustache Day!

It's the happiest day of the year: Mustache Day! Everyone go find the guy in your office in his mid to late forties or early fifties* and tell him you love his mustache and approve of his mustache lifestyle.

Also go here this afternoon and vote for your favorite mustache.





* How come if you grew up in the 60's or 70's you look totally normal with a mustache but I look like a complete idiot. It's so weird.

Brotherly Hate

I learned another pretty important life lesson this weekend, which I'll get to later, but for now I'm switching things up on the blog a little bit to complain about something. I know, I know. The reason you all come here is to read about all my positivity but please, indulge me this one time. It will just be a short rant then I can get back to puppies and rainbows.

I hate Philadelphia. I always have. My hatred is pretty irrational and based on almost nothing, but when have emotions ever been based on rational anyway? If I hate something based on sports teams, a bunch of douche bags I've met*, and the fact that certain portions of the city seem to reek of urine constantly that's just how I roll. Needless to say I was less then enthused to find out I had to head up there this week. So imagine how out felt when returning to my car to leave the city I dislike so much to find a giant dent in the drivers side door that did not exist upon my arrival in Philly. Actually you don't have to imagine because I'll tell you. I was fucking homicidal. Mere hatred has shifted to utter loathing and abhorrence. I know what you're thinking, "but Eric it's just a dent, and that could happen in any parking garage in any city in America." You're right and if it happened anywhere else I would just think, that unfortunate, I guess I have to get the fixed. But it happend in Philadamndelphia so instead of being calm I wanted to burn the whole city down. I told it was irrational.




*Some very good friends of my are also from Philly and the surrounding area but I don't let that fact cloud my decision to hate the city.