bits and bobs

That title is stolen from an english (as in Great Britain) website that I use for buying rowing clothes. It's their term for the "this and that" or "miscellaneous" clothing/accessories department that can't fit in other departments and since they are English, they use 0verly-fancy terms to describe more than simple things. Which is why I like to use their "training kit" clothing to row in, rather than the boring U.S. "workout clothes". Because after all, I'm a fancy lad and deserve to look like one.

I'm reading more and more blogs these days and its opened my eyes a little to what the current "scene" is and the "scene" is both bad and good. With "Noblopamo" or whatever going on (a bloggers pact to post once a day for the entire month of November), we have a real dilution of material out there and just general annoying stuff. Which is basically what happens to everything cool once the general public sees how cool it is. I have also determined that my opinion of the "general public" started out low, and everyday it gets lower and lower. About a year ago, I was at a stand still in that I realized how stupid a majority of the people were and that I should expect the un-expected and try to keep my eyes on the prize, i.e. friends and co-workers and not be distracted by the other monkeys in the cage. Maybe I got bored, or maybe its like a car-wreck where there was one brief glance and now I CAN'T look away. I am in free-fall now and I'm scared/excited as to how low the "general public" can go in my mind. I thought they were at rock bottom. Then I began to see this stinky molten lava core seeping between the cracks in the bedrock and I think I have only just begun.

Blogs and their reading was probably a lot like the early days of driving automobiles. There were no rules and no schmucks! The only people who drove cars were the ones that really wanted to and each car was totally different from the next. These were the real "drivers" who drove for the sake of loving how "driving" felt. They probably waved hi to each other and shared tips on how to get out of the mud and how much a pain in the ass it was to move Farmer Jack's Moo Cow out of your way. You could drive as fast as you wanted and park it where you wanted and drive on whatever side of the road was convenient . You could explore new roads and drive to places you had never been before!

Then as more and more of the general public took to the roads, they got cluttered with people who didn't belong out there. People who weren't driving for the enjoyment, but because it was easily available for them to own an automobile. Now we got problems. We got people driving slow, driving drunk, breaking cars and not knowing how to fix them, crashing into other cars, demanding rules and judging other drivers. Which is why we have the current road rage problem.

Some of the things the public brought were good. Paved roads are good, cheaper cars are good, signs are good. But then they brought bad things too......bad drivers and traffic.

I guess its the lifespan of all activities. Really fun at first, then inklings of its potential bad side, then its bad side is completely revealed, struggle with your identity/place in the activity, balance out pros vs. cons, re-assess and adapt to mesh activity with identity or quit.

I can't quit though and I am going to try to be more friendly. And I am going to try to stop harping on blogging every day and come up with some new non-nerd things. But I don't have much going on, so you will have to deal with these naval-staring posts till I get that private island with a fully stocked gym, calm water to row on, and unlimited funding and lots of movie/rock star friends. For now, I can't help but complain about being stuck here reading a blog about what she wore today and why its cool, her boyfriends ex-roomate that has a bad attitude, and the recipe for what she is cooking for dinner and why she likes this way over her mothers recipe I hate it so much I can't look away or a blog about how much he hates other bloggers and stupid music videos (ah shit, that's my blog).

Overheard at the gym from a 40 year old man who considers himself in shape (no one else does) "I've been so hungry lately! For lunch, I had a BIG CAN of soup, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of popcorn and 2 sodas"

Not much going on with this post so enjoy this video which solve the "who should I get to introduce me when I win the nobel prize" conundrum and enjoy the new music video which features indie music, yet again.....or........don't.

The peer pressure cooker

This will be the last one I swear. I am amazed that I have been coaxed out this far, but the amount of content on the internet that I read that has to do with politics and the past election has consumed my pea brain for at least one more post. (more blogging is good right?) But I am losing patience veryyyyyy quickly.

When I started blogging wayyyy back in the 05 (sarcasim), it was a fun little community. It was new and fresh and full of wild and random content about people. I used to really enjoy reading about people and their lives and thoughts about the things centered around their daily lives, however crazy or stupid it was. This year with blogging at an all time high and the election in full swing, everybody got caught up in picking one or the other and I am a little bit more scared now then I used to be. What happened to everyone? I thought, especially bloggers, were saavy and could see beyond what was right in front of them. I am a little scared because people seem to have this "the good guys won, the bad guys lost" mentallity about the whole thing. Really? "The good guys and the bad guys"? What are we, 10 years old? I am a little scared because I am not sure if a country who thinks there are "good guys" and "bad guys" are mature enough yet to handle improving the country. That McCain wanted to help the country less than Obama. That by putting a man with a different color skin in the white house has anything to do with fixing their lives. I may be young, but I know that any improvements or gains in my life have had NOTHING to do with a president and EVERYTHING to do with the amount of time and effort I put into making myself happy. NOTHING to do with taxes or gas prices and everything to do with how I handle my current situation good or bad. I read some of this stuff in the blog-world and I think some people are over-hyping the power of the president and the significance of our time. He's not God and this isn't the salvation or the apocolypse. He will not save/or ruin your life. Only you can do that. (repitition from yesterday blahblahblahhh) Get a better job, go for a run, call a friend, hug your sibling, talk to a therapist, start a club, go back to school or go to a library.

I am sooooooo sick of the veiled/unveiled propoganda on the internet. Tell me about you, not some dude from chicago/arizona. PLEASE!

I watch "south park" casually, and I think those guys are disarmingly smart. They put a lot of what I am currently thinking into last nights episode. (it'll load, trust me) It was kinda scary in a funny way, even though it was just a joke at some of what the current hype has caused our society. Behind every joke there is a nugget of truth.

I am re-reading this post and man do I hate politics. So un-natural, so grim, so combative. I can't wait till things get back to their normal dysfunctional ways. What would we all have to blog about if everything was good anyway right?

I didn't

I didn't vote. Not gonna vote. Don't care who the president is. If I did someday, it would be too late for me to change it. Cut bait and re-cast........

To tell you the truth, I am surprised at how the massive "go vote" campaign has picked up this year. I almost feel guilty about not doing something that is completely and utterly voluntary.

Way to go America! Free food in the middle of an economic crisis! Vehemently charged campaigns that has created even more pamphilet shovers, religious freaks, celebrity shouting, and internet material than any past election year! Shitty voting posts and systems are even more overloaded and are now sure to fail and have even longer lines and create even more hours of political coverage on TV.

Please feel free to vote. This isn't a "I have life figured out and you obviously don't" kind of post. This is a post because no one else is posting and putting up a little "go vote" post instead. (told you the go vote campaign is working) I just thought I would report on what I observed about this years voting cycle.

I observed that more joe-blo citizens feel connected to this election for some reason. What that reason is? I don't know because I don't care. Duh! notice the top line of this post. I am a simple man with simple needs and a simple "I do what I want" philosophy. Not surprising to most people who know me. I admire those of you who do what others can influence you to do. I do admire but I can't do it. I have never been built that way. I have a very selfish personality and you can look down on me if you choose. I won't mind even a little bit, because I don't use enough energy to spend on even thinking about it.

Am I dumb? Of course I am. I never pretend to be smart except in that I don't let my stupidity stress me out. If I don't care about something, its not just for show, I really don't care. Is this normal or healthy for a person? Of course not. But I bet if you really tore yourself apart, you'd find something exactly like "politicians" that you should care about, but don't. For some people its their family, their education, their environment, their health, their job, their friends, their finances, their love life, their lawn, their house, their car, their clothes, thier personality.

Tomorrow it will be over, except it won't. I will be here and so will you and you will hopefully be DOING something that you enjoy instead of talking about it. BEING something you wanted to be instead of thinking about it. If you're ticked/upset/disappointed with me. Is it because I hurt you? or is it because I didn't do the same thing as you did?

Plus I would have registered as a republican and no one who uses the internet wanted me to vote anyway ;)

Speaking of presidents.....

the good doctor.....

I went over the rules of the gym a while ago. But every once and a while, a person finds a way to break them in such a new and interesting way that I have to share. Share I must, because it is disturbing enough that if I don't, then I am afraid that the illogical-ness of it may eat me alive from the inside out. Then, you will find me wandering around the grocery store selling books to tell your kids how to cover their school books with the new re-usable and eco-friendly grocery bags instead of the old paper bags. Personally I used to love doing that, I was so good at it. Plus, you could draw Guns and Roses emblems on them. Textbook covering is a lost art.......

Anyyyyyywhozalll.......Lets agree to not talk on our cellphones naked in the lockeroom, okay?

There is a doctor. He is an orthopediest or an orthopediac surgeon who likes to call his patients naked while he is in the locker room. Let's name him Dr. OBG, which is short for "Dr. Old Balls GROSS!" He's about 60 and I'll start out by saying that none of his calls to date have been dire emergencies, which would be somewhat acceptable. I have seen him make these calls three times now. The first time it happened, I was going to give him some slack because someone called him while he happened to be naked. Some harm, some foul, but it got more wrong because he didn't give the person a "can I call you back". He talked for 5 mins.....naked.....then he hung up and made another call to the hospital....naked. All the while he was pacing around the locker room like it was his office. It was a small emergency in that his patients knee was swelling I guess, which is why I am going to give him some slack. But then about a month ago, I walked in on him talking on the phone naked again. I didn't listen to the circumstances that time, and thus I let him slide.

Then, the other day, he walked in after me. He took all his clothes off, put on a shirt-no pants, checked his phone, put a towel down on the bench (at least) listened to his voice mail, then.....CALLED THAT PERSON BACK. Unacceptable Dr. OBG......UNNN-ACCEPTABLE...I don't care how many years you went to college.

the birds and the bees of blogging

sit down over here for a minute.....we need to talk about something that may make you uncomfortable. You see ______, you know when you asked me where blogs come from and I told you someday that I would tell you when you are old enough to understand? Well, today is that day. Basically there are female blogs and there are male blogs. Men write male blogs and women write female blogs. The posts in male blogs are usually of some actual substance, usually un-entertainingly so. They include a funny joke or an observation or answer one of lifes many mysteries. This can be well planned or utterly boring all depending on said man's intellegence and his resolve to keep from wandering onto internet porn. Many times, a man will think he is accomplishing this task, when in actuallity, he is unknowingly blabbering like an ignoramous. (stop looking at me)

Most of the time these blogs are short, almost bullet point-ish lists, rather than substantial peices of literature. Female blogs are different then male blogs in that they are almost the exact opposite in which they find a way to write for hours delving into the most lush descriptions of nothing at all. They'll talk about,..... well.......them. And how everything in their 10 foot radius is related, EVERYTHING. They'll describe their feelings, their hopes, their desires, their history, the colors, the lighting, the smells........of their shower curtain. These blogs can be interesting and uniquely stimulating all depending on said woman's ability to not use the same vocabulary terms over and over, and not wander onto zappos.com or perezhilton.com

Whether they are male blogs or female blogs, they are created when one man or woman is a combination of desperate, stupid, crazy, bored, and lustful enough to take their fingers and stick them on the........ you know.........keyboard.

So, basically its just like sex! And you can avoid creating a blog by using protection. Basically that means wrapping your brain with things like girlfriends, boyfriends, regular friends, jobs, sports, social lives, and arts&crafts. If you can keep it busy, it won't wander into itself and then squirt out juice onto the internet. Remember though, to NEVER use a friend that is past it's expiration date on its packaging. That friend could have holes which could let the brain juice seep out into the finger canal and thus create an accidental blog that may have to be aborted in 3-5 months.

But there are lots of good blogs out there of both the male and female variety. Females tend to have more consistent and regular blog posts because their brain has the ability to over analyze the way their black heels used to be their favorites till she saw Angelina Jolie wearing a pair that was similar in Us magazine and, isn't she a bitch for stealing Brad? And isnt Brad a jerk for not having kids with Jen but making his own child army with Angelina and so on into infinity and I'll see you again tomorrow with a report on my kid Benjamin does on his 4th official haircut! Female blogs are always a good way to kill about 30 mins when you have nothing to do. Males blogs tend to be more aggressive hit or miss and short and to the point which can be dull and useless but at least you didn't spend a day reading his strikeout. This trait is why men are the best at leaving appropriate voicemails and women can't leave messages under 120 seconds if you held a gun to their head. They'd be crying about having a gun to their head and then forget to hang up........BANG! hahahahaha

ever changing, ever kind of improving?

I recently signed onto a bloggers network called "20-something bloggers" (hi there 20sb's if you are reading this) out of boredom/intrigue. I try to keep up with the nerdery of blogging, but I am impatient and have a slight case of attention defecit disorder when it comes to the internet and its recent upgrades/fads. I never seem to be able to keep up or get lazy with learning. But thats why I have the Beamer! I check out his stuff and since he is majoring in Blogging (haha, kind of true) in graduate school, I figure his example is enough to steer me in the right direction.

So now I am doing this thing......I think. It entails being a part of a community of other bloggers who talk about their blogging experiences, ideas and share their blogs. Basically, its a bloggers club. Right now you are thinking, wow.....he's an even bigger loser than I thought....but in my defense, I have no idea what I am doing on it. I am just blindly clicking on stuff and writing my usual jack-assery in random places. People get mad, check out my blog, tell me I'm ugly or homosexual and I get another precious hit on my little blog clicker at the bottom of the page. So its pretty much just like real life for me! Just subsitute clicks for moustache hairs.

(seriously, thats the last time I bring the moustache up, I swear)

It makes me wish I had a camera though. Blogging is so easy when you can post pictures of your adventures and create captions. But I am trying to save some money to get a whole video camera that I can also take pictures with. So by 2020 I should be able to post picture of my neighbors new hover-car and how much I want to dress up in a caveman suit and throw rocks at it. OOOGA BOOGAH!!

My Netflix addiction has been on hold with the busy-ness of the crew season and october baseball. I plan on getting back to conquering the 90+ movies I have in my queue sometime soon, but for right now those little red envelopes are coasters for my peanut butter jar......that I eat with my fingers.....

So there you go. YFYB is still plodding along on the coat-tails of the internet wave. Sure, my best days of blogging are probably behind me. Maybe I've dulled a little and maybe I'll dull some more. I am almost too old for 20sb But for now, I'm hanging on if you're hanging on...... Maybe send me a lot of money in the mail. I guarantee I will find something fun to do with it and I'll write all about how I bought a hang glider or a used pair of Christian Slaters underpants.

A call to arms!

Some of you may think that I am being a little irrational here. That I am perhaps taking this stance too far. But stand against injustice, I must. Someone must have the courage to give voice to the meek. That person is me. And my stance?

truly equal treatment for people with moustache's.

Go ahead, laugh if you must. Get it all out of your system so we can get down to business. The business of hate and prejuidice. Serious shit right there.

Recently there was a powder keg of tension in the vehicle of a what was thought to be a harmless and humerous television advertisement. This ad can be seen here.....watch closely for the veiled bigotry.



sure! some of you are thinking, "whats the big deal, he's just trying to protect his daughter from pre-marital relations" Yes, I agree that it can be viewed that way OR it can be viewed the way it really is.

Notice in the beginning when he announces his new family plan that his "wife" is drawing a picture, she then states excitement to call Vivian. The name Vivian means "full of life" and in the art world that can only mean one thing.......adult entertainment.

Next, the middle aged son proclaims his excitement to call "skinny pete". Skinny Pete? Why is Pete so skinny and why would it be important to frequently call him? Maybe Pete is so skinny because HE'S A CRACK DEALER.

Then, the youngest son states that his father should be excited to call "the lady at my soccer games you always stare at". An open proclamation of infedility that neither the father nor the mother even flinch at. Great job at keeping the family togethor DAD.

Finally, we get to the sweet young girl who is excited to spend some time talking to Derek. Derek who is older and wiser than her. Derek who has a steady enough income to afford quality and stylish American motor cars and has introduced himself to the father while courting his daughter.

Daddy throws the breaks down on this guy? Why? He allowed an adult entertainer, a crack dealer, and his mistress to be involved in the "family plan" but not newly upstanding suitor Mr. Derek. I'll tell you why, he simply has some hair growing on his upper lip, thats why. And for some reason, this makes Derek a second class citizen. Is this what we want to teach our children? That people who are different from us deserve to be mocked and single for the rest of their lives?

We need to change America. This open-season on moustache hatred has got to GO. It's a real sad sign of our culture that we can not get past this and I can't for-see us breaking out of this economic depression untill we change the way we think and act.

Do you know who the last president was to have a moustache? Theodore "teddy" Roosevelt.....I'm pretty sure that he has his face on a little ol mountain in south dakota next to some other pretty nice guys. My how the mighty have fallen...

(single tear)

it's a slippery slope in the detergent aisle

"(in the narration voice for Goofy's instructional episodes) Ahhh yes, the modern supermarket. Everything the modern consumer needs under one roof in an easy to use system of aisles and checkout lines. What more could a person need to shop efficiently?"

Did you ever notice how many of those childhood tv show themes stick with you over time? The voice from that cartoon is in my self monologues all the time. I wasn't obsessed with them at the time, nor did I watch them over and over, but I think I found the way that he talked and explained things so humorous, that I often insert it when I am doing something routine. It allows me to come up with new ways to explain and humorize the dol-drums. I find that when you try to simplify things in an easy step by step format vs how it turns out; you are able to realize how complicated, unneccessary, and rediculous that some of the processes are or...can become, that you go through daily.



(I love the part at the 1:20-1:40mark)

Thus, my dilemma in the supermarket last night at 9pm was to select a detergent. WTF happened in this department. Why didn't anyone tell me that it was shrinking to 2x concentrate for everything. Personally, I know this is a scam. They keep the price per load the same and you know you are never going to believe that the detergent amount they specify is going to work, because it looks the same and probably is the same as the stuff they sold you a month ago only now it costs twice as much!

So here I am in a conundrum in aisle 10 trying to pick between my trust in Tide, which has gone full out 2x concentrated and value brand which isn't and the different load per bottle amount in each brand because I need a decent amount of laundry detergent, but I can't allocate 30 dollars on a bottle of soap per year. It exceeds my weekly soap budget by about 25 dollars, and who knows how well that 2x concentrated stuff is going to work? If I buy it and go through it in 2 months, I will have to buy another 30 dollars worth of detergent and now I am REALLY exceeding my soap budget.

So.........20 minutes later I walked out of the store with a package of 20 bars of ivory for 4 bucks and I am just gonna chuck like 3 of them in the washing machine and see what happens ;)

Papa was a Rodeo, mama was a rock and roll band

I'm a sucker and I can be sold on just about anything. The only benefit to this ability is that I can turn it around and sell others onto just about anything so long as I am A)believe in the product B) like the person C) feeling bored and D) probably on mass amounts of caffiene.

Where have I been getting suckered into recently? My evil iTunes and hipster indie music addiction is well documented on this blog. God help me if I ever get into some form of gambling. I'll be an after school special on network TV saying things like "I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING BRETT, TRUST ME!! YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO QUIT........TOO LEGIT! TOO LEGIT 2 QUIT(sobs uncontrollably while doing MC Hammer hand signs)

Just so you know the Brett in that story is Brett Favre. I picture him in a 35 dollar t-shirt with an autographed pig skin tossing it back and forth between his own hands in a bribe to get me to promise to try to kick the habit. It's my after school special, I'll do what I want. Including getting Sarah Michelle Gellar out of retirement to be my vampire killing GF. Cause I love hot women and I hate vampires. 2 birds, one stone kids. Gonna teach you youngins about the dangers of addiction and of single purpose women.

Anyway, I stumbled onto this band called The Magnetic Fields because someone says they are good so I believe them and thus think that they are. Remember? we started off this e-mail by saying I am sucker. I picture them as 70% The National, 20% Talking Heads, and 10% Beach Boys. But because its not a popular band; that means its another amateur video day on YFYB

That's Alex P. Keaton to you buster.

somehow I was doing some IMDB work on Tom Hanks and I stumbled across the fact that one of his earliest works was on Family Ties. One of the newest things IMDB has is direct video access to these episodes for free and in high quality.
I have heard about this episode before as one of his breakout performances that Tom Hanks had real talent, but had never seen it for myself. Despite the awful and obvious set-ups and awkward transitions of the script that are the signature early sit-com, Tom does a wonderful job. Just when you think the sit com style script is going to ruin the moment at the end, Hanks manages to make it feel like a real life moment.

Sorry it can't be embedded, but here is the link.
http://www.imdb.com/video/cbs/vi2332360729/