A Man and His Cat - Round 2

If you have tracked my blog at all, you may remember a story I had about a fellow from work who became a little emotional when reflecting on his recently-decease-castrated feline. Today, this man became far more strange to me. If you haven't read that story, it's probably a good prerequisite for reading on. Here is that story if you're bored: A Man and His cat

Around lunch time this afternoon, he payed his usual visit to me.

Over the last two or three months, he's been asking me to visit a local-weekend farmer's market that he sets up at where he sells his "famous" rib rubs. I put famous in the quotations because that is a direct quote from him. He doesn't chuckle (actually, he cackles when he does laugh) or anything afterwards, he's very persistent about his rib rubs being notorious (in fact, he told me that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is a returning customer...yay).

So he's been asking me for a while and I've actually been trying to get up there and visit him. Unfortunately, I'm usually tied up with work or something else early on Saturdays, so I haven't been able to attend.

Well, I always assumed that he was simply being friendly about him asking for my presence, but today I had a revelation that cut deep into my masculinity. I'm fairly certain two things occurred today:

1) He asked me out on a date.

2) He was wearing perfume.

I think he's gay (it wasn't the perfume that gave me the hint, believe it or not). Now, that's not where the problem lies. The problem is that I'm confident in the fact he thinks I'm gay. I have zero problems with gay people. In fact, I promote the gay lifestyle; it controls the population and they're always so happy. Besides, I do live in a city with a high gay population (which he knows, and he also lives in) and they upkeep their property. I know this is a blanketed statement and somewhat of a stereotype I'm applying, but I don't care.

At any rate, today he asked me to dinner. He didn't say, 'hey, let's get a drink,' or 'man, wanna' catch the game?' No, he said, "you know, lets go out to dinner some time." - Verbatim. I really wasn't sure what was going on when I responded, but I said something along the lines of, 'yeah, we live close, we should catch some drinks or something.' Afterwards when it dawned on me what he said, I was glad I responded with that. It was a very safe response.

Ok, side story (I write like I talk so bare with me): He once asked me to go out for drinks after work on a Friday about four to five months back. I actually needed a drink that day and said, yeah, 'that might work, I could use a beer. Let's get one.' He then responded with, 'I don't drink alcohol.' Seriously! Who the fuck asks anyone out for drinks when they don't drink!?! I can't remember the exact sequence of events, but I escaped that post-work coffee-talk somehow.

Anyways, I'll be honest, this is the first time in my life I've ever gotten the feeling that someone of the same sex has attempted to 'pick me up.' (ok, I'm lying, it's the second). I'm really comfortable with myself, so it doesn't bother me. And actually, I find this all very humorous. Now, if he becomes as persistent with this as he does about his rib rub station at the farmer's market, I might need to find a corrective action plan (an automotive term is appropriate).

There's really no conclusion to this story. I wish I had an epic ending or something more to elaborate on. This, however, is only the second chapter in this ever-growing book of hilarity - to me anyways.

This man is a complete cartoon character. Plant life.

Online Dating Message of the Day: #3, 4, 5, and 6.

Today, I have not a two-pack, or even a three-pack, but a quad-pack!

These are so short and to the point I decided to group them together. It's not a coincidence that these don't contain a capital letter. I'm going to see how long I can post without one!

I REALLY wish I could post pictures for this one.

**********
#3:
Age: 20
Race: White
Size: Thin
Children: 2
Have a car: No
Three of her hobbies/interests: NASCAR, Weed, and Fishing.

"hey boy! hit me back."

My Opinion:
No. When you watch NASCAR, is it like window shopping? At the very least I hope you have a bike to haul your children in.

**********
#4:
Age: 29
Race: White
Size: Large
Children: 1
Have a car: Yes
Three of her hobbies/interests: driving

"do drugs?"

My Opinion:
What's funny about the site that this is from, you don't know which answer they're looking. It could go either way.

Also, that's not a typo. Her only interest she listed was "driving." Lets do drugs and drive, baby!!!

**********
#5:
Age: 29
Race: White
Size: BBW
Children: Doesn't Want Children
Have a car: Yes
Three of her hobbies/interests: money, my 89 mustang, and writing.

"if u cum this way [Redford] msg me"

My opinion:
What 29 year old spells come as "cum?" I mean, it was really funny when I was 13. I guess in Redford that's how they roll.

I also think its' becoming a trend that the women who online date love (correction, "luv") money. Although, I'm tempted with this one...she has an 89 MUSTANG!?!?! HOT! At least she's a writer...?

**********
#6:
Age: 22
Race: Black
Size: Average
Children: Wants Children
Have a car: Yes
Three of her hobbies/interests: guyz, carz, and ca$h. (listed in that order)

"u hung?"

My Opinion:
Of course the black chick asks this. And the answer is, incredibly.

**********

Online Dating Message of the Day: #2

Today brings on a new quote and adventurous female. Well, adventurous might be an overstatement, but none-the less, here's today's Online Dating Message of the Day:

**********
#2:
Age: 39
Race: Black
Size: BBW
Children: Undecided/Open
Have a car: Yes
Three of her hobbies/interests: dubs, money, and fine dine.

"hi hotie! i think u shood get back at me. cuz we shake it. reelz job n reeelz good cookin?! ~~~ "

**********

My Opinion:
I'm fairly certain this message was text messaged in. I'm not sure, but judging by the shorthand, that's my guess. The truth is though, this most likely wasn't sent from a phone.

I also have to ask myself if she's asking if I have a reelz job and can cook, or if she has a reelz job and can cook. If she made that more clear, I might consider writing back. Shit, I don't care what she looks like. If she wants to come over and cook, I'll just pay her to do that. But then again, she may already have a reelz job, so she could take offense. I've eaten some damn-good meals out, and I doubt they were often cooked by beautiful people. Besides, I love me some soul food!

Ironically though, I too am very into money and fine dine[ing]. So, maybe there's potential.

Another thing worth noting is that I just wrote this and realized something. I'm on day #2 of these messages and so far, zero capital letters. I'm seeing a trend...

Online Dating Message of the Day: #1

I made a post earlier today containing a video of a potential online dater with a case of the "twitches." After posting that I realized that I had an online dating profile that I setup almost a year ago that I gave up on (and it won't take long for you to see why I decided online dating wasn't for me). After several attempts to remember my password, I unlocked the gates to glory!

I had a total of 57 new messages. Yes, that's correct, 57. So, I began scrolling through them and realized that this was comedy gold! Don't get me wrong, there were a few that had a little bit of content, but it appears that most of the people those messages were from are no longer members on the site.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to begin posting one of these a day. Most of the messages are only a few words long, but despite that, it's amazing how much humor can be pulled from them.

These are completely unedited. I will not alter these in anyway. What you see is exactly what I received. I can't post pictures, but I will post some of the information I know about them.

**********
#1:
Age: 34
Race: Very White
Size: XS
Children: Does not want Children
Have a car: Yes
Three of her hobbies/interests: bb, monster truck shows, and 420.

"hey there what you go going on today? me just chillin here at the crib doing laundry , yea i agee this sight should be called plenty of weirdos , u have a nice day. smoke erb?"

**********
My opinion:

Where the hell do I begin? A) It's super hot that she's doing laundry. B) What's more amazing is that she spelled "laundry" correctly, but missed the 'r' in "agree." I mean, that defies all logic. I don't want to insult her intelligence, but how do you phonetically fuck that one up?

What is a "bb" that's listed in her interests? Either I'm not up on my acronyms, or she misspelled 'bib'.

Lastly, do I smoke erb? "Erb?" Again, she spelled "laundry" correctly. Maybe she thought there were gay implications if she asked me if I 'smoked Herb.'

Road to Recovery: Detroit, Baby!

Detroit is my city and I love it. Despite me growing up in the suburbs and never actually living in the city itself, I consider it my home.

Detroit is a city filled with pride. Whether it be those attached to the city because their great grandparents came here to seek the $5 a day pay rate, or the youth that are attempting to rekindle the “classic” Detroit our parents reminisce about.

I never witnessed the Detroit that was completely functional. And ironically, most of the youth who live in the city that are attempting to revive it never did either. Despite that, those people are attempting to add grease to the gears and transform it back to the well-oiled machine it once was. This is a passionate demographic. The most successful people I’ve ever met or read about are not necessarily the most intelligent or sharpest, but the most passionate.

Having visited many of the major cities in the US, I can confidently say that Detroit is the most unique. “Unique” is a unique word. The definition of that word should ultimately remain undefined by Merriam-Webster with any conventional definition. In fact, if anything, it should simply say:

Unique (yu-neek): Adjective, noun, and verb: 1. Detroit (Please visit the city for definition).

Opinion: My Top 50 Albums

Now, keep in mind that I'm not declaring these as the best 50 albums of all-time, just my favorite. I put my favorite track from each album below each one.

50. Black Milk - Tronic
"Long Story Short"
49. The Shins - Chutes too Narrow
"Saint Simon"
48. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
"Pieces of What"
47. Mercury Rev - Deserter's Song
"Opus 40"
46. The Killers - Hot Fuss
"Smile Like You Mean it"
45. Interpol - Antics
"Slow Hands"
44. Green Day - Dookie
"Pulling Teeth"
43 Gomez - How We Operate
"Chasing Ghosts With Alcohol"
42. Face to Face - Big Choice
"Promises"
41. Elliot Smith - XO
"Independence Day"

How a $31 Marijuana Bust Costs Taxpayers $100,000+

I'll refrain from commenting on this one.

Here's the article for the lazy. The source can be found below.


"With states across the country facing serious budget deficits, it is important to remember our country’s tough marijuana laws aren’t just unnecessarily cruel to people who break them, but they are also devastating to our states’ budgets.

[land]Lord of the Flies

Last June I decided to make a bold decision. It was a decision I had only decided to do two other times in my adult life. This was the decision to move.

I didn't move because I was necessarily unhappy with my old apartment. My previous place was the perfect size and it had all the essential amenities that any guy who lived alone would want: stove, shower, toilet, and refrigerator. The decision was based primarily on two reasons.

First, my old apartment was a little off the beaten path. It wasn't quite close enough to the downtown area in the city where I live in for my liking. During the summer the walk to the bars/restaurants was fine, but in the winter, the same walk had a very different feeling (it was fucking cold). Secondly, the carpeting was diarrhea. My landlord wasn't necessarily a poor landlord, but I repeatedly asked for replacement carpeting from day one and was promised that it would happen; it never did. That went on for almost two years before I decided enough was enough. So, like I said, it was more or less the culmination of those two factors that forced the "bold decision." I gave my 30 days notice and began to seek new living arrangements.

The Shifting Democratic Paradigm

As we sit in America looking past oceans and continents at the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt do we, or should we, envy the opportunities they have? Has our democracy descended into a plutocracy? How has this tainted our democratic processes? Questions like these are raised in an interesting op-ed from Bob Herbert of the New York Times that challenges us to look at the democratic revolution in Egypt reflectively. It's a short and worthwhile read.

When Democracy Weakens- NY Times

Please Stop

Around 2000 I waited with baited breath for the release of Spider-Man. I drank in every publicity photo, video clip, and trailer. It had been since the Batfilms in the late 1980's and early 1990's since a quality superhero flick was released, and the fandom was in a tizzy.



within a decade Spidey had gone emo, and the rest of the comic to film players weren't faring a whole lot better. Fantastic Four was a fantastic bomb, Ang Lee's Hulk was as bloated as its title character, Ben Affleck Daredevil, Electra, Ghostrider, X3, Cat-Woman, and on and on. As years passed the quality and inventiveness of the genre died more. For me the soullessness genre reached its nadir with Zack Snyder's Watchmen. It was by far my favorite comic, and the way it eschewed the comic industry while being a part of it was genius. The movie though represented all that writer Allen Moore railed against in the creation of Watchmen. If written in the mid 2000's rather than the 1980's Ozymandias would've been hyping the movie with his Watchmen action figure line. It was sad.

This summer is lining up to be yet another uninspired, bland buffet of comic-rag crap. Set to come out are: Captain America (fuck yeah), Thor, Spider-Man (gone emo kid), and X-Men (also branching out in a decidedly emo direction). As a comic-con going geek I am in the target audience for these films, and I honestly say I've had enough.

I can only hope that projects like A&E's Walking Dead will raise the bar back to where it had been. Put the focus back on creativity and storytelling rather than the marketability of a character.

Revolutions

The age of Aquarius has supoosedly brought the American Revolution, Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, and perhaps, again, it brings revolution in Egypt.

Revolutions are scary. With few exceptions, they're not peaceful and result in many lives lost. However, the voice of the people are heard.

I remember talking to my host dad in Ukraine about revolutions, specifically the Orange Revolution and my desire for a revolution to occur in America. He got very furious with me, and told me never to say that. He had lived through many revolutions with the break up of the USSR and the events that followed. I realized what I wanted was more of a paradigm shift--this begins with value changes.

I suppose revolutions are a culmination of a lot of factors, but usually it involves a change in leadership. American change in leadership needs to change through value changes in Americans--not through revolutions. Sarah Vowell, an editor for This American Life on PRI, describes what this might look like.

"I wish that in order to secure his party's nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickinson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael's 'Two Sleepy People,' Johnny Cash's 'Five Feet High and Rising,' and 'You Got the Silver' by the Rolling Stones. After all, the United States is the greatest country on the earth dealing with the most complicated problems of the world--poverty, pollution, justice, Jerusalem. What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office Computer, and one by one decrypt our woes."

We Used to Drink Water From the Spring

By the time the average Westerner dies they will have spent 7 months, 4 days, 3 hours, 44 minutes and 17 seconds deleting junk emails from their hotmail, gmail, yahoo, and facebook accounts. This eventuality forces one to question the central tenets of evolution—no, it is not the rambling of Creationists that throw a MONKEY wrench (get it? monkey) in Darwin’s theory, but rather statistics like the aforementioned that make one question the idea that humans develop, improve, get stronger, smarter, better. It is what we do on a daily basis that proves or debunks the claim of our steady advancement, and on the basis of a look at these daily activities, I must say that we have not progressed. Consider the following:

We used to gather food and cook it over a fire, now we dig up coal to make a fire in a plant to make electricity to send to a freezer to freeze our food on its ways to a grocery store where it will stay frozen in a freezer powered by electricity (fire) so then we pick it up and start another fire in the internal combustion engine of our cars to take the food home turn on a light turn up the furnace throw away our junk mail and pop our “food” into a microwave (more electricity/fire) that will “cook” it for us, if cooking means altering the chemical composition of the food so much as to destroy any nutritional value left after it was picked from the vine too early to be frozen so it could be reheated. What?

We used to drink water from springs, now we pollute the spring to make a plastic bottle then build a factory to purify the water and put it in the bottle that polluted the spring in the first place, and we do this so we can have drinkable spring water. Right.

We used to eat corn, now we eat high fructose corn syrup.

We used to listen to music, now we listen to [put random auto-tuned robotic voice black dude here or any of the Li’ls].

As you can see, I could clearly go on, but I'm sure it's obvious why I'm skeptical about this thing called human progress.

A Borrowed Sound

It seems that each generation experiences its own revolution. I don’t mean ‘revolution’ in the sense that the government has been overthrown and our dictator hung in the town square to be stoned. I mean it in a much more broad term. If I’m going to nail down what I’m referring to, I’ll call it “social revolution.”

I Googled “social revolution” to see if it was an original concept or not, and it turns out I’m not that original. It’s a term that one website described as (fragmentsweb.org), “Social revolution is nothing more than a change in the way we live our lives. It springs from changes in the way we think.” I like that wordage, so I won’t bother creating an original description to pass off my ‘non-original’ concept. So, think of it as nothing more than a new way that we live our lives based on new advancements by people; whether these are technological progressions, or advancements in ideology.

An Esteemed Brand of Socialism

What makes the NFL so great? According to Bill Maher it's the same thing that is threatening the core values of America, socialism. How is this possible? How did this happen? Socialism in my NFL? No way.

Don't Touch My Food!

I've been living in the area where I live now for roughly five years. Over this time, I have become comfortable with certain establishments in the surrounding blocks that I remain loyal to. Most of these places I'm referring to are in the food/bar industry. The most important thing you can do in these industries is offer the best service and quality you possibly can to receive the loyalty of the 'return customer.' Ultimately, these are the two elements that will keep a bar or food joint in business for the long-term. Where this begins for a business is their employees. The quality of a company's service will be completely dictated by the representatives they place on the front lines to serve their customers.

Where I live, there are two independently owned Subway franchises. Over the course of my tenure living in this area, I've changed my loyalty between the two shops. When I first moved here from where I grew up to here, my presence at the one Subway began only because of logistics; it was closer. I never have gone to Subway in any great quantity. At the most, I probably frequented Subway at a max of one to two times a month. None the less, when someone visits any store (of that size) that frequently you become familiar with the specific employees you see on a regular basis.

After going to this specific location for six months there was a new hire brought in.

25 Years Ago Today

25 years ago NASA had the entire country's attention. Teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was set to become the first civilian teacher to embark on a trip toward the stars. NASA's massive PR push was a success, and it seemed the whole country was watching the 11:38 launch live. Back in the 1986 schools had yet to network every classroom with TV's, and as such A/V carts were forced to scatter, classrooms merged, and assemblies were conducted. This was an event.

I sat in Sister Helen's first grade room and still remember the class wide giddiness. A TV was in the room and we were freaking. Who knew the school had TV's? Even as it sat dark it had the attention of everyone. At about 11:30 (or so I assume) the TV was switched on. At 11:38 the exhaust plumes were visible. We had lift-off. 73 seconds later the sky was ablaze. The Challenger had exploded. Our little minds were blown. What we saw was impossible to us, but it happened anyways. It was a feeling more life experience would replicate several times over.



Sister Helen responded promptly and authoritatively. The TV was immediately turned off and the class was directed into prayer. Somehow it was expected that something as abstract as prayer would quell the class' thoughts and emotions. What we saw and how we felt about it was never discussed. Seemingly, it was/is the Catholic way.

I can still recall the confusion I had when I got home and looked at my collection of NASA space shuttles. To me they were that real world thing that bridged the gap from sci-fi to reality, and now they seemed somehow tainted. As I recall it was one of the early moments in my life where I began to question things internally.

Build Ramps not Bombs

Waking up isn't always fun. Most mornings bring about a multitude pains: It's too early, where are my socks?, I should've drank less last night, maybe maybe staying up until 3am playing XBox wasn't the best idea. Regardless of how much the deck can sometimes seems stacked against, there has yet to be a morning that I woke up without hope. Without knowing if I'll be able to eat. Without knowing of whether I will make to bed time (regardless how late it is). Without any sense of future. Total chaos. Little in life is more tragic than a life that has just begun to already exist without hope.

Hearing about foreign lands, with their struggles so far removed, makes it easy to look at the problems holistically. People are killed. Lives are ruined. Women are raped. Suicide bombers explode. It all happens as a single set of data, and as a single problem- a message on the bottom scroll of Fox News. It isn't how things are. Society is an organized collection of individuals, and individuals really aren't that different form one another. Despite this, we've collectively done very little to address the struggles of these individuals, however, where there are individual problems there are individual solutions.

The NBA: It isn't all Doom and Gloom

As years between the Bad Boy era of Pistons basketball and the current day have passed I've found my interest in the sport fading further and further. It's not that the sport itself that's fallen out of favor- I love shooting hoops over many other outdoor activities- but rather the way the game is presented. The league, since the second part of the Jordan era, shifted from one that valued competition and team play (the product) to one that one that placed preeminence in NBA brand maintenance. Where this failed is that the league became so obsessed with image (and that of its superstars) that they lost sight of the product.

The culmination of the sad fall of the NBA for me was in the cry-for-attention circus that was LeBoner's South Beach presser. It was sad. Even in the age of me, and the "social" media that has enabled it- Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, et al- it was a crass display of narcissism. Making it all that much more reflective of our current society was the lengths that the cable media, who enabled the stunt in the first place, went to promote and ride the story for cycles. Days were spent analyzing subtlety and nuance that didn't exist. Like so much of our "news" it was light on content, and heavy on repetition, opinion, and PR. Barf.

Through it all there is a light. As the All-Star break nears I'm finding myself being drawn back into the association.

Terror Toons

Who hasn't had that horror movie 'kick?' It's that short period of time that, for whatever reason, the only movie genre that sounded intriguing was horror.

I love B-level horror (to an extent), but this one may have taken the cake as the most outrageous horror movie I've ever seen. It was a completely random pull from the video shelves about six years ago, but it will never be forgotten. Terror Toons was so awesome (define that however you'd like) it became legendary. Only in a movie like this could an actual porn star (Beverly Lynne) take the lead role. Well, actually, if you watch the trailer, it's not difficult to see that any acting experience (even if it's simply having sex in front of a camera) would have been sufficient for Terror Toons.

A Man and His Cat

It's only fair that I preface this story with a confession: I was once a bachelor that owned two cats. I owned the cats because of a long-term relationship I was in, and it took more than two years of being in the relationship for me to cave in to her nagging requests. Don't confuse this as an excuse, it's not. There is no excuse for a single man (who desires the opposite sex) to own any cats. This is purely an explanation. In my defense, when the breakup was official, I got rid of both cats in under two weeks.

Now onto my brief story. I was sitting in the cafeteria here at my work during lunch. I usually sit alone because the mean age here is approximately 3 years deceased. I have an acquaintance (and I use that term loosely) who occasionally makes small talk about Jesus (not into), his love for the local country radio station (not into), his recipes for pies (don't like pie), his mother (who I don't know), and his cats. Unfortunately, I was blessed with a horrible skill.