Spring is here and love is in the air

One of my oldest friends in the world came over last night with his new girlfriend. We grew up around the corner from each other, and have been friends since about nursery school age. We don't see each other that often, but we'll call or email every now and then. I know that I could count on him for anything, and he should know the same of me.

Anyway, when it comes to girls he is one of the pickiest people I know. He makes Seinfeld look like a sweetheart. Too short. Too tall. Not pretty. Too pretty. Too smart. Too dumb. Too cold. Too affectionate. You get the idea.

When he told me he was seeing someone, and wanted me to meet her, I knew it was serious. He was introduced to her by a mutual friend, and they've been seeing each other for a month.

They were having dinner in my neighborhood, and stopped by after. We talked for a bit, watched Fantasia win on Idol, then talked some more. And they squeezed in some footsie and hand holding in between. That's right. Footsie. I know he's hooked.

After they left, and he was in the car on his way home, he called me. "So? What did you think?" My answer: "Keeper."

I'm very excited for him.

How my mind works....

I hate to think it, but the timing of this new terror threat is interesting, perhaps a wee bit uncanny. Seems like a good time to re-focus the country on backing our "tough on terror" leaders. Is there an election coming up or something?

Maybe I'm crazy, but I wouldn't put trumping up a "threat" past them. Come to think of it, hopefully I'm crazy. However much a trumped up threat would suck, and however sad a state of affairs it would indicate, I can only pray that we don't see any more attacks here.

Pics from last weekend Upstate

Rocky creek


Lost toy


Mmmmm. Hammock.


Sun peeking through.


Wild flowers


Orchid?


Orchids??


Brother's new friend

Old Mil - NA

Ha. Just read something on The Black Table that made me laugh. Someone on craigslist is giving away two six packs of Old Milwaukee non-alcoholic beer. They bought it by mistake.

Well friends, saltydog here has a confession. I too was suckered into buying two six packs of Old Milwaukee NA just last year. I was back at college for The Game and staying with some friends in a hotel. We decided to grab some beers for the room. In the spirit of re-living those glory days, we went to the same ghetto liquor store that used to sell to us when we were 18, you know, to give something back to them. In the same spirit, we decided to drink the crappiest beer our money could buy. Golden Anniversary. Milwaukee's Best. Old Milwaukee. Etc... So we grabbed up some six-packs, including some Old Mil.

We get back to the room, fill up the sink with ice, throw in the beers, and each grabbed one. I went straight for the Old Mil. Crack the can. Take a sip. Mmmmmm. Goooood. Then I look at the label. "Hey. What the fuck? What is this NA crap? Oh man!!!!!!" I was so pissed.

The damned store had the Old Mil NA mixed right in with all the beers. I was bamboozled man. Perfectly good waste of $10. I'm just glad to know I am not the only one who has been such a fool. Thanks Amy Blair.

A Weekend Upstate

So posting pictures is fun. Makes the blog a little more interesting. Though it would be nice if there were some way to upload in bulk with the Hello client. If any one knows how to do this, let me know. In the meantime, when I have the energy to load up a bunch of pics, I'll post some more.

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was pretty good. Wrote a song an entry 'bout it. Like to hear read it? Here it goes.

Drove upstate with Dad and Brother Friday night. Dad somehow has a knack for making what should amount to a two-and-a-half hour drive turn into four hours at least. Not sure how he does it, but each and every time I drive up with him it takes forever. So we got up there Friday night in time to go to bed. Not that going to bed early is a bad thing.

Saturday I started off the morning splitting wood. A couple of big branches had to come off a tree, which left us with lots of fire wood potential. The tree guys don't seem to have a concept of how big a fireplace log should be, so there was lots of splitting to do. I have to say, once I took a few swings with the axe, I really got the hang of it. Not bad for a bookish city-kid. A lot of the logs went sp-lit with just one swing. I was kind of wishing Girlfriend had been there to see her Grizzly Adams in action. Oh so manly.

Once the wood was split and piled, I got to work with Dad and Brother removing the ten or so piles of leaves and other fallen tree produce. We used every instrument imaginable. Rakes, pitchforks, blowers, shovels, hands, etc... Hard work, but we got it done. Then Brother and I set about moving all the wood I had split into a nice pile in the broken down shed. We worked well together, so it went pretty quickly. And we had a good time talking and catching up as we worked.

Got cleaned up and rested a bit, then went out for some dinner. There is a good local Italian place up there that Dad likes. We split some really good calamari, and then each had some parmagiana. Brother had chicken while Dad and I each had veal. It was quite good.

Sunday was another working day. Helped Dad install a fence-post on which he had mounted a bell that he got at some auction. Like a mini Liberty Bell. He's calling it the dinner bell. He dug a nice hole, then we mixed some cement and installed the post. Came out pretty well, and he was happy. After that we did some weed-whacking. Those little motherfuckers sprout like you wouldn't believe. When the work was done, Brother felt like going for a run. I can't keep up with him (he runs semi-regularly, and I eat take-out semi-regularly) so I rode a bike along side him. It was fun until I got chased by a dog. It wasn't a big dog, but it was fast as hell and barking like crazy. I was just glad it was interested in me on the bike, and seemingly unaware of Brother running behind me. So I pedaled away from it, and its owners called it back. We had a good laugh at that one.

Dad drove us each back to our apartments before he headed home. I was looking to get back relatively early because Girlfriend was actually in NYC for the weekend. She was hanging out with her college friends from LA and Baltimore, and was planning to stay until this morning. So I got to spend some time with her, which is always nice. We caught up, watched the Sopranos (kick ass episode) and got some sleep. Good times.

Last of the Block

Here is a last sampling of Block Island pics.

More B.I. Pics

Some more pics from Block Island. Enjoy.

Block Island, Last Summer

Here are some pics from our BI trip last summer.

Pretty Fly

Check it out. Photo support for Blogger via Hello. Cool.

Weak week

This week has been pretty lame so far. Stayed home sick on Monday, and worked on my resume. The rest of the week has been work -> gym -> couch. Except today, when I am skipping the gym. Gotta get some shit done at home tonight. I am leaving after work tomorrow to head upstate with my father and brother. Girlfriend is coming into NYC, though, to hang out with friends of hers from college. One of them now lives in LA, but is here for the week. So Girlfriend and another friend of theirs who now lives in Baltimore are going to hang in NYC for the weekend. I need to leave the place in somewhat decent shape for them. But I'll spare you the details of my chores. (I don't want to give any more credence to the title that a friend has given this blog: "Interesting stories of laundry folding".)

Just heard the "ding" of the microwave. Time for dinner. Maybe I'll burn the roof of my mouth, or stain the couch, or do something even remotely interesting between now and my next entry. Or maybe I'll just finish the week weak.

More weekend fun

Caught the 5:40 train to Boston again this past Friday. Surprise, surprise it was 20 minutes late. Again.

Train ride was decent. Worked on my resume. Watched The Big Lebowski. Classic film, highly recommended to those who haven't seen it. Listened to some music. 4 hours later I was in Boston.

Girlfriend picked me up at the station and we headed back to her place. Passed by a small carnival that was still open (this was about 10:20pm) and decided to check it out. Not much was going on there, but they had a roundup ride, so we had to go on it. Hadn't been on one in years. Brought back a lot of memories. Sadly we were not nearly as unfazed by it as the two 10-year-olds who were on at the same time. It was still fun.

The only other thing we did at the carnival was play one game. They had a cork-gun game, where you had to try to shoot soda cans or zippos. You put a cork in the muzzle of the air gun, pump the gun, and shoot. $2 for unlimited shots. If you knock a can down on its shelf, you win a teeny prize. (This is why you get unlimited shots. Everyone wins at least the teeny prize.) If you knock a can back off its shelf, you get something better. If you knock a zippo down on its shelf you also get a teeny prize. If you knock a zippo off its shelf, you get whatever is taped to it. Some of the zippos had $5 bills taped to them, and some had the word "jumbo" on them. Knocking a jumbo zippo off the shelf got you choice of jumbo prizes.

I was playing for Girlfriend. Had to at least try for the jumbo. I corked the gun, and took aim at a "jumbo" zippo. Missed. I cork again. Take aim. BLAM. Zippo knocked-the-fuck off its shelf. Ok, maybe it wasn't that dramatic. But it was pretty cool. Girlfriend got a big stuffed Patrick and I got to feel like a manly man for winning it for her. Manlier yet for winning it with a toy cork gun.

Saturday morning we woke up to help Girlfriend's parents prep for a barbecue they were having that day. We got to skewer some things, and make some hamburger patties. Then we got to enjoy a bit of their BBQ before heading out to another party. The younger sister of one of Girlfriend's friends from high school just graduated, and they were having a graduation party for her. So we headed over there, with some baked brie that we cooked up for them. I think Girlfriend's parents' guests were bummed when they saw us make the baked brie, then take it out of the oven and bail with it. I know I'd be bummed if someone dangled some baked brie goodness under my nose and then absconded with it.

The graduation party was fun. Lots of good food, lots of nice people, lots of cute little kids running around, and great weather. Plus they had Corona, which always makes me happy. Between the two parties we ate way too much. Went back to Girlfriend's place, and her parents' guests were still there! We had enough of other people for the day, so we holed up in her room and watched tv until they were gone. Then we went downstairs, somehow managed enough appetite for the Klondike bars we found in the freezer, and watched more TV. Thankfully a couple of Umpa Lumpas were on hand to roll us up to bed.

Sunday we headed out to do some errands for the new place in Boston. Girlfriend's parents wanted us to eat leftovers from their BBQ for breakfast. I couldn't even look at a burger, let alone eat one for breakfast. So we politely declined, and had some ham and toast instead. Then we went on our way, erranding the day away.

We grabbed lunch at the nicest TGI Friday's I have ever seen. I'm not kidding. The place must be brand new. They've gotten all fancy on me. Well, fancier than ever. Plus the proportion of Star Wars swag on the walls was awesome. Intact Millenium Falcon. Darth Vader action figure carrying case. C-3PO head. Hoth snowspeeder. Awesome Friday's swag. Good lunch.

We erranded some more, and then made it back to the house in time for me to pack up and for us to grab some dinner with Girlfriend's dad. Then off to the train, and back to NYC. Fun weekend.

Dirrrrty

Sometimes I think a list of "Suggested Tips" should be posted in office Men's Rooms. At a minimum:

1. Don't piss on the seat. People sit on seats.
2. Don't get shit on the seat. See #1.
3. Flush when you are done. The next customer will not be as proud of your work as you are.
4. Wash your hands before you leave. Especially if someone is there to see you skip this chore.

Someone just ignored Tip #4 right in front of me. No shame.

If I have to leave this job perhaps I will have the balls to print and post this list.

Ha. Who am I kidding?

Bring it

I know. My life is pretty boring. At least in print. At least the parts I am willing to share. But people, please comment. Even if it's just to tell me how lame I am. I know at least a couple of people have found this site. But no one tells me how I am doing. Do you want more detail, less, more thoughts, more rants, more journal-style writing? Hello? Is there anybody out there????

Bummer

My DVR is busted. That makes me an unhappy boy. I'm in love with my DVR. It's the best thing to come from the cable company since Cinemax-On-Demand. Two tuners, pause, rewind, picture-in-picture, plus 35 hours of hard drive storage to record on. All the goodness of TiVo for a couple of bucks a month. Such a cool invention. Um, well, except when they break. All those episodes of Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Chappelle's Show, Justice League, Las Vegas, CSI, etc... that I had saved up are now goneski. Get me a Betamax. I want my DVR back. I'm Rick James bitch.

Doppelganger

So I was in Best Buy this afternoon looking for a DVD to watch on the train ride to Boston tonight. I saw that they had the Miramax Collectors' Series version of Swingers. Seeing as how this week just happened to mark the 1 millionth time someone has told me I look just like Jon Favreau, I decided to pay homage to the most handsome actor in town and buy the DVD. Now I own Swingers. I'm so money. And literally, one million people have commented on the resemblance. Kills me.

Oh man

This had me laughing out loud, so I had to share. Poor kid. But as I said, laughing out loud.

More than meets the eye

So who wants to buy me a PS2?

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/transformersarmada/index.html

Unfinished Business

I suppose I should finish last weekend's wrap-up before this weekend rolls around.

So that was Friday night. Korean food, beer, and comedy tv. Pretty enjoyable.

Saturday we woke up, and lounged around the apartment a bit. We enjoyed a gourmet breakfast, surfed the net a bit, and watched some TV. Then we headed out to do some errands. Girlfriend had some new pants she wanted shortened, so we stopped in at the dry cleaner where she has happily had other pants shortened before. Then we made our way down to Hallmark to buy some Mothers' Day cards. Stopped in to Krispy Kreme for some coffee, but no donuts! We were trying to be good, so we simply watched the donut machine do its thing, resisting the glaze waterfall all the while, drank our coffee, and left. We're talking some serious resolve here folks.

After that we went to the Gap because I had a coupon. There was nothing I wanted there, though I did toy with the idea of a new belt, but they all looked funny on me. Girlfriend got some stuff though, so the visit was productive.

Girlfriend had been talking about getting a haircut, and we were near a place where I sometimes get mine cut as a walk-in. Their walk-in price is decent for shampoo and cut, at $20. So Girlfriend decided to give it a try. I sat like an old Jewish husband and read a magazine while she had her hair done. When she went to settle up, the price was three times what we expected. Apparently once the blow-drier makes an appearance, the prices go way up. Girlfriend was upset, feeling she had been swindled. So I had some words with the manager.

Me: I thought walk-ins were twenty bucks. Why did she get charged $58?
Manager: That's for shampoo and cut. She had styling too.
Me: No one told her it would cost so much.
Manager: Well, he asked her if she wanted it blown out.
Me: So she was supposed to know that meant $38 more??
Manager: It could have been $70 if she had longer hair.
Me: Wait, you're really saying it cost $38 to blow dry her hair?
Manager: Look, she's been to a salon before. She knows how much this costs.
Me: Well, this is ridiculous. And a rip-off.
Manager: {winks} See you next time.
Me: No, never again.

OK. So we didn't exactly have words. But he got the point that I was upset. Then we walked out. Girlfriend acknowledged that she should have asked how much extra for styling when the haircutter busted out the drier, and that her hair did come out well, but she still felt ripped off. So never go to Amour De Hair. They suck.

We shrugged off the bad experience there, and decided to head home. We were both hungry by now, so we stopped off at the gourmet Italian deli for some salads. They have that pick your ingredients salad bar with unlimited toppings for $5.95, which is a good deal and healthy. So salads in hand, we headed on home.

After manging and resting a bit, we headed down to our friend's apartment. A bunch of us had tickets to Super Diamond that night at Irving Plaza. This friend lives near Irving Plaza, and had a bunch of beer left over from a previous get together. So we met up there to polish off those beers and listen to some Neil before the show.

As it so happened, one of Girlfriend's friends from college was also going to the show with some of her roommates/friends. So we met up with them at 119 Bar before the show. Almost immediately the friend whose place we had been hanging out at moved in on these girls. He was talking to them all, while I was talking to Girlfriend, her friend from high school, and the other people we started out with. At first I thought he was doing pretty well with them. Right when I was about to pull him aside and tell him how well it looked like he was doing, he came over to us and said "Holy shit these girls hate me." But he was having fun, so it was worth it. Suffice it to say that group left the bar quickly, without us. Oh well.... Their loss. Especially when it comes to this particular friend, but I'll save the friend ass-kissing for other posts.

We got to the show right as the opening band, The Lounge-O-Leers, was finishing up. They take pop songs and play them in a lounge-y fashion. Cute at first, but it could get annoying quickly. We bumped into the other girls, said hi to Girlfriend's friend, and then they bolted again. I won't touch that one. Anyway, Super Diamond came on about 11:00. Good times. They did all the hits, and then some. And I had forgotten that Heartlight was a Neil Diamond tune. That was the highlight of the night for me. The show let out some time around 1am. Given that Mother's Day plans were up in the air for the next day, we decided to call it a night and head home. (If my mother was into getting up in time she was going to take a train into the city early so she could see Girlfriend before Girlfriend headed back to Boston to see her mom. If not, my brother and I were going to head out to her after Girlfriend left.)

We woke up on Sunday a little hung-over, and a little relieved that Mom never called in the morning to say she was coming in. Everyone got to sleep a bit. So we got ready, and headed down to Penn Station. Girlfriend hopped on her train, then I met up with Brother and we hopped onto ours. Little surprise for the day, Dad would be there too. Mom and Dad aren't doing so well together lately, so this was unexpected, and a little uncomfortable. Their lives, though, we're just along for the ride.

Mom picked us up at the train station, and then we headed to the house. Dad showed up a few minutes later, and we were ready to head out. We went for Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food. It was really quite good. Conversation focused on politics, war, and local gossip. It was surprisingly civil and tolerable, all things considered. And my moussaka was awesome. (It's basically Greek lasagna with beef, lamb, feta, etc...)

After lunch we walked around town a bit, passing by the town dock which is always nice and peaceful, and stopping in at the ice cream store where Brother worked in high school. The owner was so happy to see Brother, and we all had a really nice time talking to him. One thing the four of us will always agree on is that we swell with pride when someone outside our inner nucleus has something nice to say about one of us. So Mom, Dad and I ate it up while the guy re-lived fun times with brother and praised him. Couldn't stop in there without buying anything, just wouldn't be right, so we each had some ice cream. Good call.

We went back to the house, helped Mom get rid of some stuff of ours that we didn't want any more, played with the cat a bit, then headed back home. Home. Guess I've been out of their house so long now that it's not where I would call "Home" any more. Now it's "the house" and my little apartment is "Home". And not for much longer. But I digress....

Full weekend. Nice weather. Friends and family. Dysfunctional or not, it was nice. And time with Brother always makes me happy and helps keep me sane.

WAH

Today was air conditioner maintenance day on my floor at home. This means I got to work at home for the morning, while waiting for the AC guys to come. I could have just left a permission-to-enter form with the management company, but I like to be there when people are working in the apartment. And I love working at home.

Working at home. Laptop on my lap. Radio or TV on. Boxers and t-shirt. Temperature settings that I control. Fridge two feet away. These are all good things. And I got a lot of work done, to boot.

Fielded some calls, dealt with some things on email, etc...

I don't see why my management is so opposed to letting me switch to telecommuting when I move to Boston. Nothing better than working at home to me.

Have I mentioned that I need to finish my resume?

Lookee lookee

So I found the URL to my friend's not-yet-ready-to-reveal blog accidentally today. I was checking my Site Meter stats, and took a look at the referring URLs. Most referring URLs are comment pages on other sites where I have left some pearl of wisdom. Sometimes I get a Google hit. And once before I was linked into by another blogger, Ron. Today I noticed another blog link, but from a blog I had never seen before. So I clicked on it. The first entry I saw was about a recent injury suffered by a friend of mine. (He ruptured his Achilles heel playing softball Monday night.) Then there in the sidebar of this blog was a link to mine. So I knew right away whose blog this was.

Anyway, that's not even the point. The point is that she has spent a lot of time making her site look very very cool. Slick in the slickest of Slick-Rick senses. It made me jealous. My site looked like donkey doo. But if you haven't learned this by now, I am lazy. And laziness tends to trump most things, even jealousy. Being the lazy shit that I am, I hopped onto blogger.com and chose a new template for my site. Something a little more pleasing to the eye. After all, I need to appreciate my two readers. Might as well give them something better to look at.

Hope you like the new look. Methinks it is much better than the old one.

Sadly, it took this IT professional much longer than I would like to admit to retrofit the original comments and site-meter tags into the new template. Guess that's why I don't code any more...

And I dropped the book list. I realized that it wasn't changing at all. I have been bad about reading lately. Though I did bring A Man In Full to work today, hoping to have lunch in the park and get some reading done. This is true.

Friday night contd...

After Korean dinner we walked over to the subway and headed on home. We grabbed a couple of beers and went up to the roof on our building. It was a little windier than we were expecting, but we got to catch the end of a magnificent sunset, so we toughed it out a bit. Talked a little bit about my parents and the current state of their relationship. Never a fun discussion, but good to get some things out. Then we went back down to the apartment and decided to watch some TV and have a couple more beers. Caught a couple of old Chappelle's Show. He consistently cracks me up. Then we watched the Chris Rock HBO special "Never Scared". It was pretty good. We laughed throughout, which was surprising given that we had heard mediocre things about it. Then again, maybe it was the beer. Finally, off to sleep. Girlfriend by my side. The way it is supposed to be.

Weekend Update

No, sadly I am not pretending to be Dennis Miller or Jimmy Fallon, or the lovely Miss Tina Fey. Just re-counting this past weekend's activities. You know, for posterity.

The weekend started off nicely. Picked up Girlfriend at Penn Station on Friday around 6:00pm. She came in earlier than usual so she could leave earlier than usual on Sunday in order to spend some time with her Mom on Mother's Day. The weather was beautiful, so we decided to walk somewhere rather than just hop on the subway home. The idea of walking somewhere is usually fun, especially in cases like Friday when "somewhere" is as specific as we get.

A few paces away from the station Girlfriend asked if I wanted an early dinner. I gave her my standard response when offered food - "I could eat" - and we agreed to find some food. I'm a big boy, so I have two responses when asked if I am hungry:

Response 1: "I'm starving" (given when I have even the slightest feeling of hunger)
Response 2: "I could eat" (given at all other times)

Anyway, we thought it would be fun to try one of the Korean restaurants on the stretch of 32nd Street between Broadway and 5th. There are lots of good places there, and we hadn't been there to eat in years. We tried to find the place we went to the last time, but it must have closed. Not knowing any better, we decided that Kun Jip looked busy/good and decided to give it a try.

They sat us at a table for four, in the back near the kitchen. We were hoping that the menu would have pictures, given that we don't know the first thing about Korean cuisine. Alas, it did not. We decided to pass on the table-top BBQ or hot-pot dishes. They are better for big groups. Instead we each ordered a regular entree. Girlfriend chose a comfort/peasant dish that consisted of ground beef, a fried egg, and some other ingredients over rice, served in some sort of crock over a flame. The idea was to mix it all up and then eat it. I went with a fish dish. Chunks of cod in broth with tofu, clam, and veggies. We thought we ordered well, considering we were flying blind.

After our order was in our waiter brought over eight plates of kimchi. The portions were generous, the variety was wide, and the flavor was abundant. We were both impressed with the quantity and quality of this complimentary/included course. After that, the waiter confused my by bringing over a casserole in a crock over a flame. Apparently this was complimentary as well. It was very light, and quite good. By the time the main courses came, we were almost full. Well, as you could have guessed, "almost full" is not really a problem. We made quick work of the entrees, and then enjoyed sipping what must have been persimmon punch - also complimentary.

The meal was good, fun, and inexpensive. Might have been better if we knew what to order, but we did okay. And we certainly had a good time gazing at the various delights on all of the other tables. We decided that next time we'll simply point at other tables and tell the waiter "we'll have what they're having...."

Also, I made a comment during the meal about wishing I had my digital camera with me to capture the loveliness that was in front of us. Girlfriend responded "why, so you can post food-porn?" I had never heard that term before. Didn't know that's how people refer to foodie-picture-postings. Very funny.

This turned into a long description of our dinner. I'll split the weekend update into multiple posts....

ATHF

This "engine" is way off-base. I would have bet on a Meatwad outcome. Oh well. Let my inner Evil shine.

I am Dr. Weird from Aqua Teen Hunger Force!!

Which Aqua Teen Hunger Force character are you??

Quick Update

So how'd I do?

Clean up Check!
Get groceries Check!
Drop off dry cleaning Check!
Do laundry Check!
Work on my resume Check!
Figure out Mothers' Day plans Check!
Test out remote access to work servers Check!
Eat Check!
Watch TV Check!
Web surf Check!

Let's not go crazy patting ourselves on the back now, though, because (ahem) I cheated a little. (I haven't actually folded the laundry yet, and I did some of the clean up work this morning....)

But between then and now, everything got done. Miraculous. Uninteresting, I know. But miraculous nonetheless. Happy Friday!

Catch up

OK. Had fun last night. Now it's time to pay the piper. Lots to get done around the apartment tonight. What I hope to accomplish, in no particular order:

Clean up
Get groceries
Drop off dry cleaning
Do laundry
Work on my resume
Figure out Mothers' Day plans
Test out remote access to work servers
Eat
Watch TV
Web surf

What are the odds I will get all this done? Slim, my friend, slim.

OK. Phase I. Dry cleaners close in 20 minutes. Better get my shit together....

OC ya later

The OC finale last night was pretty good. It was actually pretty emotional, for a cheesy show. I got a little choked up from it. Maybe that's because I was pretty buzzed from a night out. Either way, it tugged at my heart strings a little bit. Except for the character Seth's ending. Leaving notes for his parents and girlfriend and then running away on a 10 foot Hobie cat sailboat. Come on. How far can a kid get on a boat like that? So I got a good laugh out of that part, while sniffling at the other parts. I am embarassingly looking forward to next season....

Google love?

Looking at stats for this site I came across a weird entry point into my blog. Apparently someone did a search for meeting "girlfriend's parents" sucked and got my blog as one of the results. Funny stuff. Well, funny to me. Obviously not too funny to the poor guy who met the parents.

Hump Day

The week drags on... Tonight should be fun though. Meeting a friend from college for a drink. He chose The Ginger Man for some reason, even though he and I could not be less of the "Ginger Man-type". Though my business attire serves as good camouflage to fit in there, internally I will be crying. But, on the bright side, they do have a huge selection of beer there, and I am friends with one of the bouncers so I might get to say hello to him if he is working. The friend I am meeting has to leave around 7:00 to go teach a class. I would assume this is a class on the scripting language PHP, because this is his area of expertise. Wouldn't it be nice if I were enough of an expert on something to earn money teaching it? "Channel Surfing 101: Professor Saltydog" is not what I have in mind....

After posing like someone who belongs at Ginger Man, I will head out somewhere hopefully more laid back to meet up with some friends for some Cinco de Mayo margaritas or cervezas. Perhaps some place with an outdoor area. Hopefully some place with good music, and that is not too crowded. Something a little divey. Either way, I am anticipating a fun evening.

Are we really this stupid?

This business about abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American troops is killing me. It's one thing that we invaded without real justification. (Yes, I know that all involved will ultimately be better off, but that is not a justification....) Once the war was a reality, I was ok with the idea that we did topple a horrible regime, and would eventually bring democracy and stability to the country. But part of the reason I was ok with the whole thing was because of my "holier-than-thou" view of how WE do business. How WE treat enemies and civilians in enemy territory with respect. I have visions of the WWII GIs being welcomed into European towns with waves and smiles. Our troops are supposed to represent America, freedom, democracy, and most of all HOPE.

Now here we are, exposed to the world as a bunch of animals. Torturing and humiliating prisoners lowers us to their level. The only way we could have put a good spin on this invasion in the eyes of the world was to have acted with the utmost respect and professionalism. How can we scorn the behavior of dictators and terrorists when some of our own troops are no better? This hurts me as an American. It is shameful and embarrassing.

We have smart missiles for a reason. We have tactical teams for a reason. We aim to conduct our operations with absolute precision. Why? To reduce the risk of civilian casualties. To wage war in the most humane way possible. Can war ever truly be humane? No. But we like to tell the world that we take the moral high road. Or at least we did....

Wars are inevitable, I know this. I am not a pacifist by any means. War is a part of humanity. It is a necessary evil, that sometimes turns out for the best. American independence. Ending the Nazi juggernaut. There are, however, rules of engagement. There are measures to be taken to limit atrocity. It seems sadly that our own forces are losing sight of what they are out there to represent. It should mean something to be an American soldier. The job should be performed with dignity, professionalism, and respect. It saddens me that some of our troops have lost sight of this fact. It saddens me that the behavior of a few misguided troops has tarnished any good that could have come from this war, and has tranished the memory of fallen US troops. Fallen troops who were professional and respectful, I'm sure.