Rocky

Contrary to the banner picture, this is NOT a post about Rocky Balboa.

Interesting side note though: Being a child of the 80’s, and a dude, I grew up on the Rocky movies. Whenever I knew I was soon to be getting into a fight in high school (which was pretty damn often… other kids tend to like to punch smartasses), I would play “Eye of the Tiger” on my cassette player over and over again while I worked out in my basement to psych myself up for it. Pretty lame, I know, but I’m still here to talk about it so I guess there IS something to be said about being confident in the face of someone wanting to knock your head off.

I seem to drift off more and more in my old age… What the Hell was I talking about again?

Oh yeah.

Mini-Me just completed his first T-Ball season. I’m so proud of the little guy… I honestly didn’t think he’d take to it, but he seemed to really enjoy it.

One of the reasons that I think he liked it so much was that he really could give two shits about the game, he had much more fun just goofing around out in the outfield…..

… and collecting rocks.

For SOME reason, he would completely ignore the game, and search the outfield for any manner of rock or pebble he could find…. the bigger the better. Then he would proceed to shove them down his pants pockets.

By the 3rd inning, he usually had enough rocks in his pants that he could barely move.

When it was his turn to bat, he was more concerned about not losing any of his rocks than actually hitting the ball.

After he did finally manage to hit the ball, he would start running around the bases, but his pants were so heavy with rocks that he would have to hold them up while he ran.

After a few times of this, the crowd started chanting “ROCKY! ROCKY!”, every time he got up to bat.

He kinda became the team mascot. The crowd would woop it up and chant “Rocky!” every time he took to the field….

… and he loved every minute of it.

I’m not sure if I managed to get any video of him actually running around the bases with 40 pounds of rocks in his pants, but I’ll look.

Best. Commercial. Ever.

I'm kinda pressed for time today, so unfortunately its gonna be YOU guys that get the short end of the stick.

Hey, I'm really sorry, but until ONE of you finally agrees to let me be their sex slave and starts paying the rent for our new sugar shack, these things are going to just happen from time to time.

Anyway, I have no idea if this commercial is real or not. The place where I first saw it said that it IS genuine, but Budweiser didnt ever have the balls to actually run it.

Either way, I got a good laugh out of it... enjoy.

Genius At Work

God, how I hate those pretentious, Yuppie snobs that work at the Apple store.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my Ipod. It is one of the best 3 gadgets that I have bought in the past 10 years. I just can’t stand the whole Apple-Geek mentality that goes along with it… its like a weird little nerdy subculture. They are all such a band of know-it-alls, and I want to punch them all in the face.

Case in point:

Last week, I noticed that my Ipod’s battery was starting to wear out too often, so, after 4 years of using it pretty much EVERY day, I figured it was time to get the battery replaced.

Now for those of you who have never experienced the joys of buying an Apple product, you probably don’t know the hoops you have to jump through to do something that should be as simple as replacing a battery.

The first thing to know is that you cannot change the battery on your own Ipod. You have to pay to let THEM do it, or else your warranty expires. Oh yeah, and it costs 70 dollars, too! Yeah, that’s not TOO much of a racket, is it?

But it gets even better. You might think that you could just walk into an Apple store, hand them your Ipod and 70 bucks, and get your battery replaced. If you thought that, however, you’d be dead fucking wrong.

First off, you need to make an appointment through their website! Their technical department is called the “Genius Bar”, and at the time of your appointment you get to sit at a techie table and talk to some Izod-wearing preppie douchbag.

To make things better, they don’t actually “replace” your battery. No, that would be far too fucking normal. They take your Ipod, and then give you a refurbished Ipod with a new battery. Then you can take somebody else’s old shitty Ipod home, where you get to re-install all of your 1 million songs back onto it.

As an Ipod owner for 4 years now, I KNEW all this. And yet, I found myself last Friday trekking out to my local Apple store to wade through the bullshit and get my new Ipod.

Or so I thought.

I made my appointment, and got there at the 10 minutes-early “recommended” time, where I proceeded to wait for 25 minutes before a chipper Asian girl called my name, and walked me over to the Genius bar.

I handed over my Ipod to her, and she attempts to turn it on.

“I haven’t charged it in a week”, I told her. “The battery is currently dead”

“No problem,” she told me, “We cant honor the warranty unless we see that the unit is actually working, so I’ll just plug it in and charge it now”

So, she proceeds to plug the Ipod into a charger, and starts making all sorts of weird faces.

“What’s wrong?”, I asked her.

“We can’t honor your warranty. This Ipod doesn’t work.”

“Yes it does, I just used it 2 days ago”

“Well, it’s not charging. I’m sorry but we can’t honor the warranty if it’s not charging”.

“It charges. I have charged it every week for the past 4 years! It just fucking charged last week. Believe me, it charges”.

Then this bitch turns my Ipod over, looks at the charger on the bottom of it, then smugly looks at me and says,

“Ah, I see the problem. You see this little bit of green on your charger? That’s called “oxidation”. THAT’S why this unit isn’t charging. I’m sorry sir but we can’t honor the warranty.”

That’s about the point where I exploded.

“Listen, I KNOW this thing charges. Do I need to take it to my car and charge it myself?”

“You could do that, but then you will have to reschedule for another appointment.”

“Are you fucking kidding me! I’m on my lunch hour here!”

I was about to absolutely POP, when I saw it.

“Hey Chicky, I know I’m not a ‘Genius’ or anything, but with the little technical background that I have, I’m FAIRLY certain that the FUCKING POWER PLUG NEEDS TO BE PLUGGED IN TO AN ELECTRICAL OUTLET FOR IT TO CHARGE ANYTHING!!”.

That’s right… the plug was just dangling off the end of her workbench, not plugged in.

“Oh, yeah”, she says, and plugs it in. “Oh ok, yeah there we go.”

THERE WE GO?

Not “Oh Sorry”, or “My Bad”, or even “Hey, I’m a fuck-up”….

….Just “There we go”.

Want to know the BEST part?

She then took about 15 minutes to punch all my serial number info and shit into her computer, and then proceeded to tell me:

“I’m sorry, but we can’t give you a replacement unit. Our store is closing for a month, starting tomorrow, for renovations. We don’t have a replacement in stock and won’t get one in until we re-open.”

AND SHE COULDN’T HAVE FUCKING TOLD ME THAT WHEN I FUCKING WALKED IN?

It seems to me like the word “Genius” doesn’t quite mean what I THOUGHT it did…..

Should I Be Concerned?

I had some things going on this past Saturday, so I was out of the house pretty much from 9A.M till midnight or so.

The point being, Friz was alone in the house all day.

Or so I thought……

Because when I got home late that night, what did I spy with my sexy little eye on our kitchen island but THIS………..



Now, I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but there’s only a handful of things that I can think of that involve the 2 items damningly left on my kitchen counter, and since I wasn’t involved in any ONE of them, I thought that the girl had some fucking explaining to do.

Upon waking her up, Friz stammered out some half-assed excuse that they were left over from her “Girls Book Club”, which I had forgotten had met at our place while I was gone.

Quickly, I went from angry, to extremely turned on.

Friz is APPARENTLY going to stick with the story that the items were just leftovers from a salad and some desserts that they had whipped up, but my mind is now swirling at the prospects of the breakout Book-Club-Turned-Lesbian-Orgy which took place under my own roof while I was out and about. I never knew what FREAKS these chicks were!

Someone needs to get me a book fast!

Anyone know where they sell those things? I think that MIGHT be what a “library” is for, but I can’t be certain. Maybe I’ll Google it.

You Like Me, You Really Like Me!

The best part about being a world-famous cyber-celebrity is that it gets me tons of sex.

Well, not actual “sex”, but it DOES get me thousands of women all over the world who desperately want to be with me. When you compound them with all the women (and men) LOCALLY who want to get with me, the number becomes ASTRONOMICAL! Probably more than 8!

What was I talking about again?

Oh yeah, the fact that you all cant seem to get enough of me.

Case in point: Over the weekend I was presented with TWO, count ‘em, TWO awards from chicks who can’t live another moment without professing their naughty love for me.

But really, can any one of us blame them? They’re only human, after all. You all HAVE seen my picture, right?

Listen, lets just all agree that women all over the world, regardless of race, creed, religion or cup size all are dieing to get in my pants, and move on, shall we?

Anyway, first I was honored with an award by the lovely and talented Faiqa

I’ve been reading Faiqa’s site for about a year now, and it never fails to disappoint. She’s a great writer. Much better than I’ll ever be, but I guess that’s not much of a compliment. Anyway, I always enjoy reading her well-versed take on things from family, to religion, to her unending love of Angel.

I would have given her even MORE praise, but she had to go and tarnish my award by comparing me to a girl! OHHHH, if she were here right now I’d just scratch her eyes out! Hissssssss!

No sooner did I recover from the honor above, then right afterwards I got an award from Chris.

Chris is from New Zealand, which apparently is NOT the same thing as Australia. Yeah, I know… news to me, too.

Chris left me a voice message up top, a few weeks ago. Anyway, I’ve probably revealed this before, but I think people’s accents from that part of the world are just about the sexiest damn thing since sliced bread. Irish accents come in a close second, but I as far as I can tell, I don’t have any Irish readers, so fuck Ireland.

Chris always amazes me with how often she writes. I think my head would explode if I tried to blog that much, and it’s always good tidbits about what’s going on with her family and stuff. And with all the work she puts into her blog, she still finds the time to come here and comment on just about every one of my stupid posts. It’s noticed, and much appreciated.

Anyway, now that the floodgates are open, I expect the rest of the Free World to follow suit and adorn me with their laurels and accolades. It’s really the LEAST you all could do to make me happy.

I need as many kind words and compliments thrown my way as you can muster. I’m not sure if you have gleened this about me, but I have a bit of an ego problem.

Balls-Out Funny

So, I’m sitting in a meeting with about a dozen other co-workers, when one of the guys attending gets a call on his cell phone.

As we were pretty much wrapping the meeting up, and basically just sitting around bullshitting, he decided to take the call, after seeing that the person calling was his wife. She had recently gone back to school to get her Master’s degree, and she had just taken a big test that she had been studying like mad for, so he was anxious to learn how she had done.

The other 11 of us, being the nosy fucks we are, had nothing better to do than to listen in.

I GUESS she was telling him how she just finished the exam, and it was very long and difficult, and now she was exhausted and just wanted to take a nap.

He replied, “Gee honey, that test took a lot out of you!”

At least that’s what he ATTEMPTED to say…

But, he got as far as saying “Gee honey, that test took al….” before he hiccupped.

After recovering from his hiccup, he quickly continued his sentence, but went back a bit and started from the “…. took a lot out of you!”

So, to recap, what the rest of us sitting there eavesdropping heard was…

“Gee honey, that test took al took a lot out of you!”

Not getting where I’m going with this? Say it to yourself a few times. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Yup, that’s right. What the rest of us heard was:

“Gee honey, that testicle took a lot out of you!”

Holy shit did the rest of us delinquents laugh our asses off. The best part is the look on this guys face, as we all fell off our chairs laughing. He had no idea what he had said that made us all bust up.

Finally, he must have played it all back in his head because, a few seconds later, his face turned from utter confusion, to utter pissed-off-ed-ness, as he called us all “assholes!” and stormed out of the conference room.

Its days like today that make it (almost) bearable to come to work everyday.

p.s. I have no idea if the book in the banner pic is real, or just a photoshopped hoax thingy. I could EASILY look into it and check it out, but quite honestly, the whole thing just fucking scares me.

If you’re into that kind of thing, however, be my guest.

The Joys Of Summer

I was reading an internet article this morning about people’s favorite summer movie experiences, and it really took me down Memory Lane.

If you come here often enough, you no doubt have gleaned that I am somewhat of a movie buff.

Believe it or not, when I was younger, my obsession with movies was MUCH worse. For a while, when I was in my early 20’s, I was semi-obsessed with seeing the all latest Summer Blockbusters on opening night. I just HAD to go see it the first night it was released, before anyone else.

My friends and I used to turn it into a weekly party: We would get to the theatre HOURS before the movie started, and got in line early. Then the large group of us would drink, carouse, get into fights, and basically get into all the kinds of trouble that young people can get into, all while standing outside of a movie theatre…

Some of those memories are the best I have of my young adulthood.

So, this article obviously stuck a bit of a chord with me, and I thought I would take a few moments to come up with MY OWN favorite summer movie experiences.

GhostBusters 2 – Yes, the movie completely sucked donkey balls, but this movie still holds the record for the LONGEST I ever had to wait on opening night to get into a movie. We arrived at the theatre at 6pm, and FINALLY got in to see the 11:30 show. By that time, we had gotten into 2 bench clearing fights (one of which ending with the police) drunkenness, and general hilarity. By the time I got into the theatre, I didn’t even care WHAT I was seeing.

Friday the 13th Part 3 – I haven’t talked about it in a while, but I have a special place for Jason Vorhees in my heart. I used to have a friend who loved these movies as much as I did, and on the night before a new Friday the 13th would come out, her and I would rent all the previous movies and watch them all. In a row! Pretty sick, I know. But at the time, it was great fun. Anyway, on the night of F13 Part 3, Eddie Murphy’s Raw was opening up the same night. I guess horror movie fans and urban comedy fans don’t mix too well, because a fight the likes of which I have never seen in my life broke out outside, which ended with some sorry dude getting thrown through the plate glass window of the theatre. Anyway, this was the first 3-D movie I had ever seen, and I had some bragging rights that Fall at school as I told most of the other kids about it who weren’t allowed to see it.

Star Wars – I don’t know what a little 9 year old Slyde thought he was getting himself into when my dad took me to see this one back in the summer of ’77, but I can pretty much consider it the first official geeky obsession that I had. Star Wars just BLEW me away. The first day of school that next year, Star Wars was ALL we talked about….

The Empire Strikes Back – It was three years later, but the end result was the same. The only difference was that THIS time, I knew EXACTLY what I was getting into when I stepped into the theatre... I think I almost convulsed with prepubescent excitement as I waited for the movie to start.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – This movie experience was magical for me. FBDO just happened to come out in the Summer of 86, a few weeks after I had just finished high school. Watching it, I completely agreed with Ferris’ summation of the uselessness of most of the high school experience, and how he felt as he was leaving high school pretty much summed up EXACTLY where my head was at at that time. It just struck a chord with me that I, just like Ferris, just got through the bullshit of high school, and was about to finally experience the real world. It’s still one of my favorite movies of all time.

Jaws – I guess the banner picture kind of telegraphed this one, didn’t it? Back in the Summer of 75, this film, one of the best of all-time, was all ANYONE was talking about. I remember my parents had gone to see it, and they told little 7 year old me all about it. But of COURSE, I was too young to see it. But then, as he did so often throughout my life, in stepped my grandfather, who saw how much I wanted to be the first to see it, and since he just could NEVER say “no” to me, took me to see it one Saturday night when my parents were out, and I loved him for it. Of course, for the next 6 months I couldn’t even take a fucking BATH without practically shitting in my pants in fear that I was going to be attacked by a shark (really), but that Summer movie experience STILL wins hands down as my best ever.

I’ve got others (a ton, really), but I guess I’ll stop there. What about you?

At Last.....

Hey, do you know whats great about having a construction crew milling about all over your house like worker bees, hammering, sawing, and generally making a big fucking racket, from 7am till 5pm every day, for weeks on end?

Not one damn thing.....

What am i talking about? Surely, you guys haven't forgotten already that this year, for mothers day, i let Friz basically remodel our house? Don't you guys hang on my every word? Of course you do.

Anyway, as of this week, we are finally done. At least for now. The trouble with being "me" is, I'm pretty sure at some point in the near future, I'll have to make up for doing SOME shit or another, and I'm finding that the easiest way for me to get out of hot water will be to build another wing to the old homestead, or a western veranda (what the fuck IS a veranda, anyway?) or some shit like that.

Anyhoo.....

This is what house Slyde looked like last Christmas...




And THIS is what it NOW looks like...




Much bettererer, no?

Anyway, I'm hoping that every time i do something stupid for at LEAST the next few weeks, i can point to the house and say "Could you just give me a LITTLE bit of a fucking break, please?"

At least that's the plan...

The 7 Year Itch

Before you all get any ideas…. No, this is not a post about my wandering eye. All is quite good and stable on THAT front.

No, earlier today I was reading THIS article, which I found kinda interesting. Of course, I was reading it on “work” time, and pretty much ANYTHING I do on work time is more interesting than actually “working”, so maybe it wasn’t as interesting as I thought it was.

Where was I again?

Oh yeah, the article. Anyway, this piece talks about a study that was conducted that seems to have determined that most people seem to break ties with the bulk of their friends, and make new circles of friends, about every 7 years or so. For sure, most everyone has a friend or two that breaks that rule, but I began to take a good look at my own sordid history of friendships to see if I conform to the results of that study.

And for the most part, I kinda do.

Let’s start from the beginning.

When I was a wee-little Slyde, starting out in the world of elementary education, I, like most kids, made some tried-and-true friends that I had thought at the time I would have for the rest of my days (or at least until I was really REALLY old… like 20!). I pretty much had this same crop of friends, until we moved on to junior high (7th grade for me). Different school districts, different schools… the bulk of the friends I had made when I was young quickly melted away.

Jump to Junior High, where I met the people (good and bad) that I would spend the next 6 years of my life with. Here, over time, is where I met the friends who I SWORE as they signed my yearbook that “We would be friends forever!”. Our colleges weren’t THAT far away, and we would always have Winter and Summer breaks, yadda yadda yadda. Pretty much everyone that I would have DIED for when I was 18, is now no more than an occasional “Hi! How have ya been?” on Facebook. Makes me kind of sad when I think about it, but there it is…

Jump to college, where I again made some incredible friends that I bought a house with (5 guys an 2 girls living in a house in upstate NY, some of the best and worst times of my life), went on Spring Break trips with, got drunk with when they went through bad breakups, wiped the hair out of their eyes while they puked their guts out over the toilet the next day, and basically experienced the emotional gambit of what new 20-somethings go through as they enter adulthood together.

Know where they are now?

Me neither. Besides the odd “Family Christmas card” and again the occasional Facebook “HeyHowAreYa?”, I really don’t know those people anymore.

I’ve moved on. We all have.

Cut to my 20’s. A young, angry young man trying to make a name for himself at his first job. I made some great friends around this time…. A very close group of like-minded young adults. For the next 6 years or so, we spent virtually every weekend all hanging out together, as a group. We bonded, dated, fought, and were close as all get-out.

Aside from an occasional lunch get-together, a dinner night out where we meet each other’s wives, or that rascally Facebook again, they are all but gone too.

The group of friends that I have had for about 5 years now make up pretty much 90 percent of the people that I spend my social free-time with. I enjoy the time I spend with them, and at this point don’t wish that to change.

But after reading this article, I’m forced to wonder…. How much time with these people do I have left?

Is there some internal clock, unbeknownst to me, slowly ticking down the amount of time I have left where I can stand being around these people?

Likewise, are THEY, in turn, beginning to weary of me and my shit? That can’t be! Need I remind everyone that I’m near-perfect and extremely sexy? They can’t be tired of me, can they?

Something to think about as you take a look around at your closest friends the next time you see them.

p.s. The only close friend that I have currently had for over 10 years is, for some reason, Earl. Which is really weird, since he’s basically a dick.

And not that this has anything to do with anything, but every 5 years or so, instead of changing friends, he completely changes his physical appearance. It's true. He looks totally different NOW than he did way back when. When I first met him, he was a 6 foot tall black man.

Now, I’m pretty sure he’s Asian.

Well, This Is Nice…

There’s no better feeling in the world than to walk in to work on a Monday morning, just to have a Human Resources representative come to tell you that we have a case of Swine Flu right here in my office!

Are you kidding me?

But all is ok. We are being told “not to be concerned”, because the quick thinking geniuses that run this company have hired a cleaning service to come in here tonight and “give this place a good cleaning”.

Whew! That’s a load off my mind.

For a second there, I was kinda worried that I might catch this thing, but just knowing that, when I get to work tomorrow, I will be working in the cool comfort of knowing that the FUCKING CARPET IN MY OFFICE WILL HAVE BEEN VACCUMED!

That should solve everything! Never mind the daily barrage of people coughing all over me every fucking day in the kitchen as I get my morning coffee because, in a stroke of genius, my cheap-ass company did away with Sick Days last year and now if you need to take a day off it comes out of your Vacation time-off.

The net result of THAT winning move is that NOW no one ever takes a fucking sick day!

But now I can rest easy knowing that it will all be fine tomorrow because someone will roll a steam cleaner past my office tonight.

That’s sure is a relief! I’m sure to sleep easy tonight.