diary of a crumpler

The List:
February 2008
Gift cards:  Due to my backlog of holiday and birthday gift cards to Kohl’s, (thanks Mom, Dad, Judy!) I purchased:

A Ralph Lauren sport jacket to replace a crappy Dockers blue blazer that I haven’t seen since 2005 when I may have left it at an ex-girlfriend’s house.  Yeah, 2005, I don’t have to dress up too often for work.

A pair of Nunn Bush dress shoes that are WAY more comfortable than stylish.  Kent is the model or whatever.  Kent is also the name of a Swedish rock band.  Highly recommend both.

and

Two pairs (one Haggar and one Dockers) of wrinkle resistant dress pants, ‘cause I can’t/don’t iron hung over.

I got all that crap for $22 after applying my gift cards.  That’s pretty awesome, eh?

I was considering going to Goodwill to grab a jacket, but think I made out better with Kohl’s as I wouldn’t have purchased second hand shoes.

Mom also hooked me up with a gift card to CircuitCity, which I planned to use for Guitar Hero, but I’ve not yet purchased (hint hint, PS2, please). 

With Apple reducing the price of the 1GB Shuffle to $50, and having a $30 gift card, I went ahead and picked up a silver Shuffle.  Sized as big as a book of matches, it will hold 200 – 250 songs, roughly.  I’ve got 150 on it now, about three quarters full. 

This will replace the spot in my backpack left when I decided to relegate my 4GB Green iPod mini to bedroom duty.  TheGirl got me a Sony iPod dock clock radio for X-mas, so greenie’s been living in the alarm clock.

Check the Shuffle out.
For $50 it’s a hell of a little mp3 player.

Nancy got me an eBay gift card, which is basically a PayPal.com gift card, which I didn’t even know existed.  Which brings me to my next thing of awesomeness on The List:
 
Buying Authentic Jerseys on eBay:
I started selling some of my replica jerseys on eBay a couple months ago.  While searching around and comparing prices I started finding new authentic jerseys that I liked at reasonable prices.  I’ve literally put together a heck of a collection.  With the gift card from Nancy, I got a navy Authentic Emmitt Smith jersey.  With the profits from my replica sales, I got a navy Authentic Witten.  I got a couple throwbacks too, a “double star” Aikman throwback (like the thanksgiving blue and whites they wear) and a long sleeve olde skool Bob Lilly – cotton, like a sweater.

Along the way, I figured out the difference between the Authentic, Tackle Twill, and Replica Jerseys.

The Authentics are the highest quality and most expensive.  A true Authentic from an NFL Team shop might run you damn near $300.  The Authentics are noted for their spandex-material side panels, embroidered numbers and letters, and cuffed sleeves.  My Emmitt Smith and Jason Witten jerseys are this type.

The mid range offering is the tackle twill jersey.  These also feature stitching instead of cheaper screen printing.  You’re not going to have the same thick material construction, or little details like the cuffs on the sleeves.  Most of the throwback jerseys are in this category.  My Aikman jersey is one of these.  These retail from $75 – $125

The cheapo selection is the replica.  Lightweight and flimsy, the logos, names, and numbers are screened on.  Retail is probably about $50.  These are also the only current Reebok jerseys that are sized with letters (S, M, L, XL, XXL, etc.) instead of numbers (48, 50, 52, 54, etc.)
THE “B” LIST:
Starbucks: Showing up this month for their ridiculous attempts to resemble a corner coffee shop despite the fact they’re on every metropolitan corner and every suburban shopping mall. 

Why do they bother having a “today our barista “Rob” recommends the skinny sugar free cinnamon dulce latte!” sign?  A normal coffeehouse might put that up, with the actual favorite drink of the barista, or whatever he or she made when he/she showed up at work.

But Starbucks would have you believe that baristas at every location in existence made the exact same recommendation for a solid month simultaneously.  Amazing. 

Every barista at every Starbucks is currently recommending that drink?  Does Starbucks corporate think we’re retarded?  That we wouldn’t recognize this fact?  Or do they assume that all of their customers go to the same single Starbucks. 

Maybe I’m the freak, probably visiting at least ten different starbucks locations per month.  And I’m not even a fan!  It will continue as I probably still have about fifty-eleven dollars left in Starbucks gift cards.

Ever notice that the barista don’t go by their real names?  I wonder if corporate marketing research determined that the name “Rob” tested better to their target consumers than “Steve”.  Test it.  Call the barista by the name on their tag.  See if they look up.  They don’t.

Wax:  Women, pay attention: I don’t wanna beat around the bush:  Stop talking about your waxing ways in front of dudes.  Here’s the new rule of thumb: If you have to wax something on your face, don’t talk about it to anyone that you would potentially want in your face.  Or mention it in his presence.  It creates a mental image in our heads, where we are picturing you with a mustache, like a real, honest to god Magnum, P.I. ‘stache.  This is one of those things that we should not picture.  Like you taking a dump.  Or giving birth.  It’s easier for us to imagine this type of thing NOT happening if you’re NOT talking about it in front of me.

Speaking of waxing:
Lawsuits: Innocent until proven guilty or rich.  Associated Press reports that Lindsay Lohan has settled out of court with busboy Raymundo Ortega regarding to their 2005 car crash.  This despite the fact that California Highway Patrol determined that Ortega caused the accident when he made the illegal U turn.  Isn’t that some shit?  I know, I know, it’s Lohan, but she actually wasn’t the guilty party and still got nailed for $200,000.  Hehehe. 

Steroids in baseball: I’m tired of reading and hearing Roger fucking Clemens blame everyone in existence for his screw ups.  The fact he admits that two of his friends and his wife used illegal substances, but he had no knowledge of any of it.  Bonds, Clemens, Canseco.  McGwire.  These were the names of heros of mine growing up…

Bluetooth: The only thing this device should ever be used for is DRIVING.  Or pissing people off.  I am so tired of people using these as part of their regular cell phone usage.  The technology isn’t that good yet.  It sounds like crap.  I have a co-worker that lives by his and it drives me fucking nuts.  I can’t understand him when he’s on it.  It seems to pick up everything clearly EXCEPT his voice.  And I have to remind him how much I hate it every time he calls me.  He’ll probably read this.  Take me off the fuckin’ Bluetooth, Brian.

Designer Eyewear: I got new glasses.  Versace.  I feel like they look good but feel like flimsy little dinks.  They already broke once.  I’ve have them for six days.  Two pairs ago I had Armani Exchange glasses.  They were flimsy, too.  What’s up with stylish glasses being made of metal that would be rejected for paperclip construction?

I had to replace my old sturdy ones after they “became mangled” in New Orleans.  That’s the second pair of glasses I’ve lost or damaged on site.  JSA should sponsor eyewear to those of us that wear it and consume vast quantities of alcohol.

lyric of the moment:
“balls out, my life is a slut,
this dick don’t hit the bottom,
but i fuck the sides up!”

Selling organized religion is like selling fitness equipment on a late nite infomercials – the folks pushing it don’t need it and the folks that need it don’t want it.   lastly a lot of the donkeys that step up with their credit card will never use it, properly at least, for the rest of their lives.  All that Jesus’ing sits in the basement collecting dust,  and we could’ve put that pool table down there.

Yesterday Mat, Megan and I saw License to Wed as Mat has already seen Transformers (he said it was a let-down) and I’ve sworn against seeing a Harry Potter movie.  It was more feel good than funny, but not terrible (if you haven’t seen it, wait for the DVD).  Robin Williams’ little mini-me badass pastor steals his scenes, and it’s a bunch of the crew from NBC’s The Office if you’re into that.

i went to church today, for the first time in years.  i grew up mormon, whatever that means.  What I mean is, I never really identified with the religion, though, despite getting baptised into it.  The funny thing is, there was a lot of weird shit about the mormon religion that I didn’t get.  But those weren’t the questions I was asked by friends and schoolmates.   I was constantly answering stupid questions of my peers.

“Yes I drink caffine – you’re right I probably shouldn’t.”
“No, we can’t have multiple  wives (that was abolished like  150 years ago..)”
“No, we are Christians…”

After being inactive in the mormon church for a number of years, I actually tried to go back, a couple times in my teens,  A couple things kept me from committing, and I still just wasn’t into it…

Good thing too, ’cause all my boozing and whoring of my teens and twenties, totally would have gotten in the way of my being a good little mormon boy.

My only other religious experience was a dozen or so southern baptist sessions with my dad’s family down in Caroline, and a couple Catholic funerals or weddings (not much difference – to me at least, between a Catholic Wedding and a Catholic funeral, both are forever long, guilt-rich, and  unmemorable.).  All i got out of the baptist gatherings was a(n) (un)healthy fondness for fried chicken and watermelon.

So i don’t have a great deal of jesus experience under my belt…

i attended both the liturgical service, as well as the more “contemporary” praise and worship service at Bethel Church of the Nazarene in Quincy, MA.

Liturgical means “customary form of worship” or traditional.  This service included traditional Nazarene hymns, a sermon and a handful of biblical readings.  One might think that I, being “unchurched”, would prefer the praise and worship service, which is tailored  to a more casual style of service with contemporary christian songs replacing the old fuddy-duddy hymns and a shorter run-time, cutting out a few of the biblical readings.   pretty much the exact same sermon as well,  augmented by my little brother, with a special bit of preachin’ for the little ones.

Mat told me of a perceived problem of these new “contemporary” services, not just at his church, but at other churches within other denominations throughout the country.  This style of worship caters to the boomer generation that saw church growing up as a bunch of stuffed shirts and gloom and doom.  It is refreshing to the folks to enjoy a lighter gospel.  My generation though is different.  We’ve had MTV and the internet to entertain us for years.  Crappy contemporary christian music isn’t going to make it onto my iPod, so why would I bother.  Gen Xers and whatever generation Matthew and I belong to don’t need  church to entertain us – we get enough of that already.  We don’t see these new Jebus-pop-songs as anything more than attempts to blend pop-culture with religious overtones.  or something.  god help me if matthew reads this…

i was planning on totally ripping into Born Again Christians in this blog too, pointing out that the term born again comes from John Chapter 3.

So Jesus and Nicodemus were chatting one night and Nico wanted to know how Jesus was able to do the things that he did.  Jesus said one must be “ANWQEN”

Here’s where it get’s interesting…  That word, ANWQEN when translated from the greek is either “born again” or “born from above”.  Apparently the GREEK verb to be born can be misleading, whether we’re speaking about being born again or born from above.  Nico gets confused, Jesus clarifys and all is good.

Here’s the problem.
Jesus and Nico didn’t speak greek, but rather aramaic.   Greek is the only language where this could have been confused.  Jesus wasn’t reported to be fluent in greek, so this conversation couldn’t have taken place, in this context whatsoever.  If they were speaking in aramaic or hebrew – this confusion would have been impossible.

Born agains named their religious movement after a confusing greek mistranslation.

Way to go, jbell.

Dear AeroBed Inflatable Mattress,

I am deeply disconcerted by our recent time spent together, specifically, last night in New Paltz, New York.  You were loud and raucous, insensitive to my needs.  I’d hoped to joyfully share you with my lady friend, but she found you  and your callous nature disobliging.

You see, AeroBed, we’d spent the entire day drinking beer and irish whiskey.  A LOT of beer and irish whiskey.  We’d been in the warm sun all day and partied late into the evening with friends and family around a bonfire.  We really needed you strong and silent, as neither of us had slept well for days on end but you let us down.  

 I know it was late when we got in, but TheGirl had taken measures early in the evening to ensure your place with us.  She’s taken steps to cloth you in loose fitting white cotton.  She was trying to make sure that all three of us were as comfortable as possible for our encounter later that night.  When we arrived to lay down with you,   everything seemed okay, little did I know what I would experience only moments later.  What a let down…

You’re too clingy – the way you wrap your sides tightly around us, forcing us without compromise into your middle.  We had to fight to get back out to your sides only to slide back, minutes later, into your U-shaped middle.  This made us most uncomfortable.  We don’t like how you cradled us either, feet and heads high in the air, with our assess on the floor.  The honeymoon is over, kid.  Fuhgeddaboudit. 

Every time either TheGirl or I moved you noisily objected, groaning our every movement to everyone in the house.  You violated our privacy and lost our respect.  We found it to be most inconsiderate.

AeroBed, this isn’t the first bad night we’ve experienced together.   TheGirl and I have talked it over and decided that the occassional menage a trois we frequently try to enjoy with you is never going to happen.  From now on, we’d rather sleep on TheFloor.

Yours truly,
Oglethorpe Shawangunk

Frequent Traveler
And Occasional Sofa Bed Sleeper

This little ditty is way late, but i promised i’d chronicle the Big Show, so here goes.

The good:

• We didn’t have to work on Memorial Day.  Most folks will look at that and scoff – “Who would ever have to work on Memorial Day?  That is simply Un’merican!”  Friends, I work in the tradeshow industry – where no holiday is holy, no weekend is long, and nothing that you take for granted is as it should be.  Last year, I worked Memo day for this show in Atlanta.  However, Chicago has a very strong labor union working at the convention center, so the it was ‘dark’ or ’black’ for the day.  And, no, Swistikat, I am not saying they temporarily hired African American “scab” workers to fill in (poorly, no doubt) for the obviously superior Arian workers for this one day*, I’m saying the convention center was completely closed and me and the hombres had been planning on  going to Wrigley Field to see the Cubbies for MONTHS.  It was totally worth the wait.  
• The pagentry of Wrigley field is amazing.  From watching the ground crews hose down the infield before the game to the eight inning appearance of the Cub’s ‘rally caps’ there are few ballparks left in America that actually enhance your experience at the game.  They released a bald-fuckin’-eagle during the star spangled-fuckin’-banner.  A BALD EAGLE!  The eagle spiraled effortlessly down to the infield (and it briefly looked like he was going to go teradactyl on some pigeons, i hoped in awe).
• Hearing “Getchur Malt Cup” for the first time.
• Seeing a Trailor-Park-Barbie  pee herself and then passed out on a 7-11 parking curb a half hour later.  Apparently this girl had accidentially pissed herself earlier as well.  She demonstrated to E, as she ran her hand down the inside of her thigh and then licked it.
• hearing rikki (obliterated already) call us all a bunch of pussies and tell us he could out drink us all
• Miller’s Pub & Rest

The slippery slope:

 
• having two shots of Jaeger and a few beers before getting on the flight to Chicago, then pounding eight vodka/OJs on the flight, then arguing with co-workers, being a complete buffoon, falling out of the escalator at hotel, suffering moderate injury to knee – which still hurts a month later.
• the video game Boxer which I played until reaching a decent score of 843. This score is still twenty points lower than the machine’s high score of 863. I also now cannot make a fist with my right hand. This happened a month ago…

The bad:

• every pair of pants i wore from 5/25 – 6/8 has bloodstains on the left knee area.
• The IML29 party going on in our hotel that didn’t end until 5/29.  Pictures are here if you dare.

*”he’s not a racist, that’s what’s so insane about all this.”

reasons i stayed home from work today:

reasons i didn’t stay home from work: (wait, fuck.  no.  that isn’t what i wanted.  that implies that i did not stay home from work today.  but i did.  how about negative factors not taken into consideration RE: my absence from work today.  gads, that’s only marginally better.)

1.  no ability to spend the day mobile or even relocating, hourly for a place more fit.  inability to run errands outside of the small town of remington.  my car is at the dealership in frederickburg being fixxered.  the girl, took her car to work. 

2.  lack of sufficient stash of tasty vittles.  we were very hesitant to buy groceries last week and this weekend.  and by hesitant i mean, everytime we thought about going to a grocery store we ended up in a bar.  like, three times in the last six days.  i leave town on wednesday, she leaves town on thursday, each gone for a week or more.  this translates to an unwillingness to spend beer money on groceries that would only spoil before either of our returns home.  looks like i’m eating canned tuna and microwave popcorn for lunch.

 3. lack of quality programming on television.  daytime tv is the absolute worst, and while there are college basketball games on, there are not any i would like to see.  court tv, trashy talk shows, anna nicole, and the like will not suck me in.  and no.  rachel ray is not good television.

here are the actual reason i actually stayed home from actual work today, actually.

Actually! 

1. to prevent the bic lighter that was accidentally left in pants pocket from incinerating in the dryer, thus burning down the house and ruining all for everyone.  someonein my household occasionally forgets to check pants pocket to ensure that she/he has removed any and all igniting materials prior to beginning the wash/dry cycle.  i’m not going to name and names here…

2. to blog about the frustration of finding the “automobile of your dreams” only to learn it is only available in automatic transmission (a topic assigned to me by Siobhan, as I already own the bestest car evar!)  It has become increasingly apparent that american people are lazy slobs.  i was befuddled recently with conversing with co-workers regarding the inability to drive the standard transmission.  our domestic car makers are rewarding this by significantly reducing the production numbers of standard transmissions.  the true shock and horror occurred recently when we discovered a popular american sports car we both were fond of is not being made with a manual option.  we’d planned on replacing her car with that one, in a couple years.  back to the dealerships… 

3. to solve the Zodiac killings (possible movie spoiler below).  after watching the movie yesterday i felt conflicted – while i liked the movie a great deal, it’s as much fiction as fact.  well, maybe that’s not accurate, but arthur leigh allen didn’t do it.

the movie was based on the book of the same title, written by Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal’s character).  Graysmith’s book is widely criticized for exaggerating, jumping to conclusions and at times just flat out lying.  Again, I liked the movie.  I think it was well done, but it’s one obsessed man’s fight for closure, regardless of accuracy then filtered through Hollywood.  I came up with a better title, after researching some of the Zodiac websites.

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