DOWN WITH PANTS!

This is my 900th post. I've wanted to do something a little bit more celebratory for my 900th but my internet access is very limited here in my hometown of Olympia, Washington. My parents have dial-up, which makes using the internet virtually impossible, and I haven't had time to hit any wifi spots.

Anyway, we're here showing off our baby to basically the whole city. She's up to 52 new people met since we arrived in Wednesday. Most importantly, she met her Great-Grandpa days before he passed away Sunday morning. He was awake sitting up in his chair, for basically the last time, to meet her. He even gave her the "put your dukes up" stance that he always gave us whenever we saw him. He pooped out after only a few minutes, but I'm sure he was very proud and we all kind of think he hung on just long enough to get to meet her. He was the best guy, lived a long and great life, and we'll miss him very, very much. I'll probably write a lot more about him in the near future.

Anyway, we were supposed to go home on Tuesday, but we'll be staying here until either Friday or Saturday. If you want to follow me on Twitter, please add me. I'll be updating that much more often than I'll probably be able to update this until we get home. Can you believe anybody has dial-up anyore?

When I was a kid, I loved to draw. I'm sure there are still tons of notebooks at home filled with sketches of various spacey things. It was all because of one man and his TV show. Mark Kistler's Imagination Station was, arguably, my favorite show on TV and I followed his lessons religiously.

I stopped drawing at some point and totally forgot about Mark Kistler until just the other day, when for some reason, I started thinking about his show. I couldn't for the life of me remember his name or the show's name but thanks to the wonders of the internet, I have found the man again. And guess what, he has short little eight minute drawing lessons posted on YouTube!

So getting back into the Imagination Station swing of things, here's the first lesson that I took - Flowers In A 3-D Box....


And here's the results of my trying to hurriedly follow along. Boy, it's been a long time since I've done any drawing...


Yeah, I need some work. But thanks to Mark Kistler's Imagination Station, I'll be drawing bug-eyed monsters and space stations in no time flat!

Let's see if we can finally get this Interactive Movie Meme wrapped up. Only three one quote remains. I've added two quotes from each movie to hopefully get your brains a going. Hopefully, a. will help you. But if not, highlight the words white space after b. to reveal what should be a give away quote...

9. "Patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear."
a. "They don't look like Presbyterians to me."
b.
The Muppet Movie! - Guessed by the birthday boy, Dave "No frog's gonna make a monkey out of me!"
13. "Well, maybe you think it's intellectual because you were raised with a banana and an inner tube... This is an intellectual-free zone."
a. "You think with a financial statement like this you can have the duck?"
b. "I like the relationships. I mean, each character has his own story. The puppy is a bit too much, but you have to over look things like that in these kinds of paintings. The way he's *holding* her... it's almost... filthy. I mean, he's about to kiss her and she's pulling away. The way the leg's sort of smashed up against her... Phew... Look how he's painted the blouse sort of translucent. You can just make out her breasts underneath and it's sort of touching him about here. It's really... pretty torrid, don't you think? Then of course you have the onlookers peeking at them from behind the doorway like they're all shocked. They wish. Yeah, I must admit, when I see a painting like this, I get emotionally... erect."
L.A. Story - Also guessed by Dave

14. "One scoop of creamed potatoes. A slice of butter. Four peas. And as much ice cream as you'd like to eat."
a. "Is it that sometimes the pain inside has to come to the surface, and when you see evidence of the pain inside you finally know you're really here? Then, when you watch the wound heal, it's comforting... isn't it?"
b. "Each cut, each scar, each burn, a different mood or time. I told him what the first one was, told him where the second one came from. I remembered them all. And for the first time in my life I felt beautiful. Finally part of the earth. I touched the soil and he loved me back."
Secretary - Guessed by Artful Kisser

Like before, leave your guesses in the comments and I'll update it as they are guessed.

Ever wonder why everybody always eat ham on Easter? Well, I'm no biblical scholar, but here's how I understand the story goes...

When Jesus was resurrected he rose up from the tomb and found a big bunch of Jews hanging out, kicking it, having a picnic of bagels and lox and pastrami sandwiches and talking shit and high fiving about the crucifixtion a few days earlier.

Jesus, as you can imagine, was not pleased. In his deepest, darkest, foulest voice, he bellowed, "silly Jews, I am back. And guess what? We're eating pork, bitches!" And Jesus started flying through the air shooting whole hams from his hands like lightning bolts at all of the Jews.

Seeing this, the depressed and downtrodden Christians joined in and picked up all of the hams that Jesus shot and started chasing the Jews around and throwing the hams at them.

When the very last Jew was either chased off or knocked out by Jesus and his Christian ham throwing posse, Jesus took all of the hams and prepared a gigantic feast and proclaimed, "from this day forward, Christians shall eat the meat of the dirty swine just to piss off the Jews" and in honor of Jesus, his resurrection, and his freeing of the Christian world from Kosher dietary laws, Christians celebrate each Easter by eating ham just to rub it in the faces of the Jewish people.

And that, kids, is why everybody eats ham on Easter. It's also where the game of dodgeball was invented - Christian kids have been using that game to bully little Jewish kids for years - and it's also where the saying "when pigs fly" comes from, although the meaning of that saying got a little mixed up over the years.

But that's a whole nother biblical story that I'd love to share with you sometime very soon. Like I said, I'm no biblical scholar, but I'm pretty sure I know how that story goes too.

Addie - Today I pretty much spent the day sitting on the couch watching basketball. Yeah, I love unemployment. But most of all, I love fatherhood. In reality, I sat on the couch with my little girl for most of the day, the basketball was just a happy little perk. Yesterday she had her two months shots, so naturally today, she was a little cranky. She just wanted to be held all day and I was more than happy to oblige. She practiced smiling a little bit - she doesn't quite have the hang of it yet, but she's getting close - so my sore butt and tired arms are totally worth it.

Basketball - Yesterday I had my last Mormon league basketball game that I will play in here in Ventura before moving back to Seattle. I've played with the same team for the past three years and it's been a lot of fun except when we play the Ojai ward's team. What a bunch of jerks. They cry and complain, play overly rough, run up the score, pick fights with the opponents, pick fights with each other, don't show up to referee the games they are supposed to ref and generally act like big prima donnas...of the frigging Mormon basketball league. They've driven people out of the league because they are so frustrating. One guy left the league and never came back after refereeing one of their games. I can relate, after reffing a game between them and the Filmore team I vowed to never ref a game again in the league.

We were supposed to play them last night and I was really looking forward to it because in my three years we were blown out by them every time and I really wanted one last chance to either beat them or get them all riled up. But those a-holes didn't even bother showing up for the last game. They had already made the playoffs, so what do they care? I guess it should come as no surprise, they pulled the same crap last year.

I want to remind you, this is church basketball. Except for them, every other team plays primarily for fun and usually we have a blast even when our team hasn't been any good. I think Ojai's team should look themselves in the mirror and ask, "What would Jesus do?" Or "What would Joseph Smith do?" Or at the very least, the captain, a guy in his late 40's who is the worst of the bunch, should look at his son - his son who punched another kid in the youth league - and realize that he's the problem and he has turned his kids into uber-competitive little monsters.

I expect a lot better out of Mormons.

Country - Am I the only one that is really worried that this election is going to bring out the absolute worst in this country? It already is bringing it out on all sides.

The whole racial divide thing is pretty sickening, but not surprising, and watching both the conservatives and the Hillary camp use it and abuse it for all that it's worth is disappointing. If Hillary ends up taking the nomination because the tide turned on racial issues, I'll have a hard time voting for her.

And if Obama gets the nomination anyway, you know the conservatives are going to pound the racial issue into the ground. My hope is that America comes to it's senses and realizes and penalizes the Republican Party for trying to divide the country that way. But my fear is that it will probably work and we will once again realize that white men and their fears and their stupidity and their dead-behind-the-eyes wives control this county and there isn't much that independent women, minorities, or intelligent white men can do about it.

I'm so sick of white guys.

It's almost 2:30 AM and I'm sitting here on the computer waiting for my little girl to wake up so that I can go to sleep. It's funny how some things you do with babies just don't really work the way you would like them to.

Death? went to bed after feeding her around 11:30 or so. I put Addie down in her pack-and-play that we have in our bedroom hoping that she'd also go to sleep and I could play on the internet some more. Well, that didn't quite work out, she was fussing a lot and making too much noise and I didn't want Death? to wake up. So I brought her into the nursery/computer room and put her in her crib while I played on the internet. She stayed awake looking around and sucking on her binky for about an hour and a half and just when I started to get tired myself, she fell asleep.

Problem is, though I wanted to go to bed, I knew that as soon as I picked her up to take her into the bedroom with me, she'd wake up and have a freakout. I'd rather that not happen. I'd prefer her to calmly wake up on her own and calmly wake up Death? for a feeding.

I figured that would happen by now, but she's sleeping pretty good. So now I'm stuck here waiting for her to wake up and trying to decide what to do. I'm starting to nod off as I write this.

Oh wait, there it is, that little whimper, that little cry. I guess it's time for her to wake up, and finally time for me to go to bed.

Every time Death? has dressed Addie in her special I Heart Daddy onesie or pajamas, which she has done a couple of different times now for a couple special occasions, she has managed to absolutely destroy them. Today mommy dressed her up in her I Heart Daddy onsie for my birthday and she looked as cute as could be and, as she does nearly every day, she melted my big, mushy heart.

We played a little bit, ran some errands and went out for a birthday lunch. Everything was going great until after lunch when I changed my first diaper of the day. As soon as I opened her diaper up, it was a poop fountain. Every time I got my hand close to her to clean her up, she flashed me a mischievous look and let loose another stream of poo. One after another, in rapid succession - it was horrible. It filled her old diaper, ruined her new diaper, splashed on the changing table pad, on my shirt, some made it onto the closet door and of course, it ended up all over her I Heart Daddy onsie. All the while, she stared right at me, right in my eyes, as if to say, this one's for you. Heart Daddy? Hmmph!

I know it's nothing personal, I shouldn't take it as anything other than bad luck, but the ratio of pooped on I Heart Daddy clothing to pooped on non-I Heart Daddy clothing is off the charts and it kind of breaks my jumping-to-conclusions heart. What can I say, I try to put two-and-two together even when it doesn't equal four.

But later while changing another diaper and with me taking every precaution to avoid another poo-shower, she healed my half broken heart and made everything right. A soiled onsie is no match for a big, wide, dimpled, albeit brief smile that gave me a glimpse into the future and what I have gotten myself into.

I know that she doesn't not Heart Daddy, in fact, she really does Heart Daddy a lot. And I - I am in a shitload of trouble.

Hilly and Sizzle are rocking this little meme on their blogs and I thought it was a lot of fun, so here you go. We'll see if I even get enough visitors to get any of these guessed. Here are the rules...

* Pick 15 of your favorite movies
* Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie (or quote them from memory because you are that bad ass)
* Post them on your blog for everyone to guess
* Fill in the film title once it’s been guessed

These are your rules:
* No Googling or using IMDB search functions (Don’t cheat!)
* Leave your answer(s) in the comments

1. "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!" - The Big Lebwoski - Guessed by Dave

2. "So she's kinda fucking cute. Let her touch your penis." - Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle - Guessed by Dave

3. "That is a babe. She makes me feel kinda funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class." - Wayne's World - Guessed by Hilly.

4. "Well, there was the part that you missed where I distracted him with the cuddle monkey then i said "play times over" and I hit him in the head with the peace lily." - Hot Fuzz - Guessed by Jesse

5. "Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work." - Office Space - Guessed by Sizzle

6. "Oh yeah, the Great Bambino. Of course! I thought you said the Great Bambi." - The Sandlot - Guessed by Cristen

7. "Alright, we have a piper who's down. It's alright, he's just pissed. We have a piper down, I repeat, a piper is down!" - So I Married An Ax Murderer - Guessed by Hilly

8. "Since you're new here, I'm gonna cut you a break... today. So, why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?" - Back To The Future - Guessed By Sizzle

9. "Patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear."

10. "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." - Star Wars - Guessed by Jester

11. "I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House. I dunno. They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused." - Raising Arizona - Guessed by Hilly

12. "Man that ball got outta here in a hurry. I mean anything travels that far oughta have a damn stewardess on it, don't you think?" - Bull Durham - Guessed by Catheroo

13. "Well, maybe you think it's intellectual because you were raised with a banana and an inner tube... This is an intellectual-free zone."

14. "One scoop of creamed potatoes. A slice of butter. Four peas. And as much ice cream as you'd like to eat."

15. "He's sex obsessed! The older generation's leading our nation in a state of galloping ruin!" - A Hard Day's Night - Guessed by Jesse

Guess away everybody!

I played a triple-header of sports tonight.

My first game: A Mormon basketball league contest. I only scored six points and I played crummy defense and overall stunk and we ended up losing by 17 points. My game was ugly.

My second game: The first of two Oxnard softball league games. I went 0-1 with a walk and an error and we ended up losing 33-7. There wasn't even one thing fun about it. The other team could've probably scored more or held us to less runs if they didn't mess around for the last three innings.

My third game: Another softball game. Once again I went 0-1 with a walk and we ended up losing 31-8. It was just plain nasty. It's really not fun when the other team plays players in positions they have never played or tries to hit wrong handed or whatever.

So, in three games tonight, my teams were outscored by a grand total of 66 points.

Why in the world did I even leave the house? Exercise? Yeah. Right.

First the bad news: Today I was the victim of what my now ex-employer likes to call a "Reduction-In-Force", or as it is referred to many times in my paperwork, a RIF. Oooo...a cute little nickname for what otherwise is a nastier, more final version of a layoff. Thirty people, including myself, got the ax today since my ex-company - I have to check my contract to see if I can safely refer to them by name. Let's just call them The Cobblee Spleen and Teal Lief for now - is currently tanking.

Now the good news: This is fucking awesome! Losing a job never felt so right. I was going to take about eight weeks off starting in April anyway. I was going to use all of my vacation and then take advantage of California's Paid Family Leave Act to get paid. I can still do that, so it seems - maybe tomorrow I'll find out it doesn't work - but they did pay me an OK severance package and cashed out my vacation. And they did me a favor by setting me up to get some unemployment benefits after the Paid Family Leave Act money drys up. It all basically leads to me not working and staying home with Addie, and getting paid, until we move out of California and back to Seattle in July.

I have now been laid-off from four jobs. Is that a record? Probably not.

I was let go by the Richmond Roosters baseball team after they decided that they couldn't pay me anymore. It was partially my fault because I struggled selling ads and tickets for them, but they insisted it wasn't necessarily performance based. I then lost my job at Ebbets Field Flannels when they moved their warehouse, and my position, to Connecticut. In Ventura, Lime Green toy company almost went out of business and since I was the last employee in, I was cut because they couldn't pay me. And now this, The Cobblee Spleen.

The only reason that I'm at all disappointed is that I hated to leave my co-workers. The two people that I worked with on a daily basis are awesome people and employees and will always be my friends. I'm really worried that they will have to put up with a bunch of crap from a new supervisor (I was the boss) and they are not going to be happy about it. I kept them very effective by keeping them very happy. What do I care if they knock off a little bit early or need a day or two off here and there because of family stuff? They are hourly employees, as long as the work gets done, it only hurts their pocketbook.

Otherwise, I'm so excited to not be working. I'm going to be home for the first round of the NCAA Tournament! How awesome is that? Great timing!

Oh yeah, I'm also mad that I thought of a great line to use just after the HR rep left my office - "Good luck with your layoffs, all right? I hope your firings go really well."

While I'm not defending Eliot Spitzer, am I the only one that thinks this whole "scandal" is vastly overblown? Am I really supposed to be surprised that a politician is getting thousands of dollars worth of head? If he were giving thousands of dollars worth of head, then we might have something shocking.

The other day at lunch, I was physically sickened by someone's appearance.

I wish that was something I never would have to say, but it's completely true and after figuring out what the problem was - or at least making a very educated guess - I don't really feel that bad about it.

I was waiting in line at Snapper Jack's Taco Shack and a women came in to pick up a phone order. She looked completely normal - normal height, normal weight, normal hair, she was dressed relatively well and other than looking like she smoked, she had a normal face.

Then, she opened her mouth and GODDAMN! She had teeth going every which way, one on top of the other, another pointing almost straight out, big huge gaps, crooked, broken, yellow, disgusting, horrible, nasty. Oh man, just looking at her teeth made my stomach churn, my body twitch and the thought of fish tacos totally and completely unappealing.

How can anybody end up with teeth that bad? Poor hygiene? No dental insurance? Boxing career?

Nope. The most likely culprit? Meth. Death? said it was the classic meth head look. Totally normal....FUCKED UP TEETH!

Now, I'm not an addictive personality so I don't know what it's like to have something like drugs rule your every waking moment, but I can't imagine taking anything that has such a quantifiable and visible side effect on you. It's one thing to gradually get skinny or whatever, it's another thing to go all crazy-style snaggletooth.

I guess what I'm trying to say is...meth heads, please stay away from Snapper Jack's. The only thing that should upset my stomach like that is salsa and beans. No nauseating smiles needed.

Oh yeah, and kids...just say no.

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Speaking of meth heads....


Mr. Potato Head! Say it ain't so!

It's official...Punk is dead.

This morning in the shower, for some reason, I had this Ventura restaurant - Chicago For Ribs - on my mind. I was thinking about how I would write my review for Yelp if I decided to Yelp it even though I haven't been there for a while, maybe like a year or so.

I came to the conclusion that I shouldn't write a review because one of my policies is that I don't review places I haven't been to for a long time (restaurants can change so quickly) and also that one of my Yelper buddies wrote a really nice review about how he ate there the day that his kid was born. My review wasn't going to be quite as nice - although not that bad either, it's not a bad place - but I thought it might be a little tacky.

So, with that still fresh on my mind, I opened the door to go to work and something was attached to our doorknob. To my shock, and kind of my dismay, it was a menu.....for friggin' CHICAGO FOR RIBS!!!

Totally weird. I've been a little freaked out ever since.

If you have one lame post and one meme on the same day, does it equal out to one decent post? Anyway, just in case, I stole this from Kapgar...

Here is what you do. Use the first letter of your middle name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things…nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person you took this from had the same first initial. You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. Middle name letter: G
2. Famous artist/band/musician: G Love and Special Sauce
3. Four-letter word: Goop
4. U.S. state: Georgia - I seriously had to look this up, I couldn't think of one.
5. Boy name: Glenlivet
6. Girl name: Gwenifer
7. Animal: Gnu
8. Something in the kitchen: Goobers
9. Reason for being late: GOT FUCKED UP!!!
10. Body part: Groin
11. Drink: Gay Anal Sex on the Beach
12. Something you shout: Go! Huskies! Go! Huskies!
13. Something you eat: Gobstoppers

Feel free to steal.

I shouldn't admit this, but during the day I check in frequently, probably too frequently to the LA Yelp talk threads. I personally love quotes taken out of context, they make things so much more fun, so here's a few of my posts today taken totally out of context...

Do I believe in jinxes? Yes. You should not discuss a streak. Never talk about something great if you don't want it to end.

Since the birth of our first child, I am getting more sleep than before she was born. That's right, I said it. More sleep. Not less. I am pretty well rested.

I do not talk about no-hitters while they are happening.

Seriously, she's been sleeping pretty well with only minimal amounts of crying or general restlessness. And just in case she freaks out at night, I'm going to bed at 10:30 to 12:00 rather than 1:30 to 2:00. No more late-night blogging, Conan O'Brian watching for me.

If I were in the dugout, I would sit at the opposite end of the bench as the pitcher.

I've even been getting up early on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays for 6:00 AM pickup basketball at the Mormon church just up the road. It's the first time in my life I've ever gotten up that early to play a sport or workout.

There are two outs in the ninth and ESPN has just picked up the broadcast...

Did I say I was going to start full-time blogging again today? Well, I may have lied. That's what happens when you, well, suck. Yeah, I said it.

But very quickly, before I pass out from getting up at 5:45 to play basketball and then actually putting in a full day of work at work (crazy, I know!) only to play a soccer game at 8:00 in addition to all of my daddy duties, I just want to congratulate Death?'s and Narnarnarnar's alma mater in being the first team to make the NCAA Tournament on Saturday. That's right, Cornell is going dancing!

Welcome to earth, four horsemen! And Merry Christmas basketball geeks. It's time for March Frigging Madness!