So Much Less Than Awesome

This truck was parked next to me at the mall.  I sat there and pondered it for a while, and as the levels of awesome started to sink in, I realized I had to grab a photo.

First, the main name of the company.  “All”.  Granted, it would be better if it was “Vito’s Erection”, but “All” adds some class, some distinction, and plants a funny scene in my head.

Doctor: “Well sir, that swelling doesn’t look right.  That may be a tumor.”
Patient: “No sir, that’s All Erection.”

I also love the implication that sometimes cranes are required to move these massive erections around.  Actually, that frightenes me quite a bit.

I think I can accurately pinpoint when I caught my ADD.   The year was 1984.  At the time I was not a good student (I say “at the time” to imply that I got better, so you don’t think I’ve always been an idiot, but now I fear I may have blown my cover).  I was prone to raging (lazy) fits (periods) of inattentiveness.  I like music, and I feel as though prior to 1984 my ADD was kept in check by the monotony of fast forwarding, and re-winding tapes, and being forced to either sit through a song I didn’t want to hear, or waiting for it to fast forward.  Records were comparatively easier to change songs than tape, but still, you had to get up, walk over to the record player, and carefully pick up, and move the needle, a pain in the ass by today’s standards.

The day my family bought a CD player in 1984, I also bought my very 1^st CD.  The soundtrack of one of my very favorite movies ever… Beat Street.

I remember putting the CD in the machine under the watchful eye of my dad who probably just spent 40 thousand dollars on the CD player, and didn’t want my stupid chubby sticky hands on his Hi-Fi.  As soon as the music started, I pushed the ‘forward’ button because I recognized the “Shitty-Song-NEXT!”hieroglyph from my tape player.  I expected it to take some time like a tape, but when the next song started playing instantly, I was filled with joy, and then I hit again, and again, and again.  I listened to my first CD in about 24 seconds, and it felt good, but I’m pretty sure that’s when I caught the ADD.

It’s possible that I’m looking at this the wrong way, but shut up.  Sure, maybe my having an uncontrollable compulsion to change songs CONSTANTLY was my pre-existing attention deficit rearing it’s stupid ugly head, but I’m no doctor, so let’s not confuse me things any further.

More efficient fast-forwarding technology, and increased music storage has made my relationship with music even more frantic.  Right this second, I am listen to my library in itunes, and “Push It” by Salt-N-Peppa just came on.  My body involuntarily did the Janet Jackson head-snake move to the right, and then back to the left, and it felt good, and I was pumped.  Now, it’s about 19 seconds later, and I’ve hit to “The Loco Motion” by Little Eva.  The first 10 seconds were good, but I quickly grew bored.  Moving on   Elvis Costello/Allison…nice, mellow -25 seconds- Orange 9mm/Pindrop –haven’t heard this in a long time – 14 seconds-   Sweet Caroline/Neil Diamond  - 8 seconds- 33% God/Beastie Boys -7 seconds- *takes head phones off, breathes deeply*

Normally I go on like that for a long time, until I hear the one song out of my 9,513 songs that I NEED to listen to in its entirety, and by “entirety” I mean at least 30 seconds of it.

Just like brilliant scientists figured out AIDS began as an ill-advised weekend getaway with a monkey and a bottle of rum, I have successfully pinpointed the cause of every one of my shortcomings, ever.

This innocent little two-triangled button is the sexy monkey that I just can’t say no to.

I can’t stand tucking in my shirt.  I mean I really loathe it.  Even though totally ridiculous, tucking your pants into your socks actually makes more sense.  If you’re freezing to death right before you go to bed, you can tuck your jammies into your socks, and your freezing cold bed won’t kill you with blunt-force hypothermia.  You can also tuck your pants into your socks to prevent a bicycle chain from eating you alive when you’re out cruising for chicks on your Schwinn.  Tucking in a shirt doesn’t even make an attempt to save your life…what an asshole.

I normally don’t tuck my shirt in at work.  I sit all day, and when I stand up, it’s always half un-tucked, and I look like I just regained consciousness under a barstool at 10:30 AM.  Granted, un-tucked may give me the untidy appearance old farts notice, and dwell on, but it’s so much more functional.  Ever since I gave up trying to impress the ladies with my threads (I hooked one, and got married…BURN!), I have gone for function over fashion religiously.  What’s more efficient?  Spending and extra two minutes during one of my 49 bathroom trips a day tucking in, or not tucking in, and saving  an hour and 38 minutes a day (I checked the math).  I also shaved off quite a bit of time by not washing my hands, wiping, or flushing.  Sometimes I don’t even pull my pants up*.  I’m about as efficient as they come.

* I promise, I wash my hands ALL THE TIME.  I didn’t even like writing that.  Oh yeah, I wipe all the time too, and I flush, and I pull up my pants (when I have to).

In high school I was a dirty skateboarder.  Most of the time I wore clothes that could withstand the daily abuse that comes with falling to the ground…at speed…many times a day.  I was dating a girl who once who complained that I didn’t dress nice enough.  So, the very next day, I wore a  brand new T-Shirt, and I tucked it into my ‘nice’ jeans.  I looked like a twat, and felt like a goon, and my girlfriend wasn’t even impressed.  My friends all laughed at me, and I couldn’t blame them.  There was a new kid at school that day who would eventually become a very good friend.  He told me years later that he was relieved to see a group of skaters, and thought making friends maybe wouldn’t be so hard that first day.  Then he saw one guy in the group who had a bright red t-shirt tucked into his too –tight jeans, and then he wasn’t so sure if that was the right group of people for him.  Sorry if I made your first day confusing Brent.

So yeah, I have my shirt tucked in today.  Not sure why, but this is the first time I have tucked my shirt in at work in 10 years or so.  I hate it so much, but it’s at least making the day interesting.  Tomorrow, I may try some broken glass in my shoes.

If you happened to miss this shirt, it was picked up by teextile.com, and will be on sale aywhere from 3 days to a couple weeks, depending on how well it does.

Artists on http://Teextile.com get $2 per shirt, so make sure you buy thousands of them.

California is a complete mess.  The elected officials have their heads so far up their asses that it has been scientifically* proven that their heads actually pass upward through the digestive tract, up the esophagus, and finally out of the mouth so it looks as though they are just normal people with their heads on their necks, and not way up their asses.

While difficult to prove, my theory is that there is a direct correlation between the power of the political office held, and how many times their heads makes the loop from ass to mouth.  I believe the Austrian Robot from the future who governs us may actually have a head that makes the ass-mouth-circuit 7 times.  While he has not submitted himself for testing, there are many indications that this estimate is accurate.  I’m too busy to verify that, so just google it**.

Yes, school funding is in the crapper, but I don’t need any learnin’ smarts to know this is science* people!  And some science you just have to learn on the streets.

*If I’ve learned anything from modern day scientists, it’s that the word ‘Science’ is Latin for:  Confuse them enough to scare them so they give you money to keep confusing and scaring them, then get more money and use part of that on booze and strippers that look like sexy librarians, and then pretend to do more science stuff.”  Honestly I’m surprised we don’t have a scientist infestation problem like our lawyer problem.  It seems like a pretty kick-ass job.

If you’re questioning my qualifications, just remember that I used words like ‘theory’,  ‘indications’, and ‘esophagus’, and big words usually equals high-science, and while I used the word ‘ass’, or ‘asses’ four times, I never once used the word ‘asshole’.  SO, there you go.

The prosecution rests your honor.

The above photograph is 25 year old Owen McNulty on his 1^st day as a city councilman for the city of Saskatoon in the year 1949 .  It was a part-time position, and without much of a salary to protect, his head only made it so far.  He later moved to California, and became the Mayor of the city of Richmond, and his head successfully made its first full-loop.  He went on to have a distinguished career as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry in Washington, and, eventually became a Congressman in California.  At the time of his death in 1993 it is said that his head went up his ass, out and around again a record 17 times.  His autopsy results were classified, and disappeared under mysterious circumstances years later.

** I may have told you to google it earlier, but as a foremost authority, you should probably just get into the practice of believing every word I say.  In fact, maybe you should just go ahead and delete google.

For my B-day, my family went flying.  It was so cool!

It was a great day.

Today I turned 40.

How can I put this politely?  Holy F*****G CRAP!  I’m as old as F*****G S**T!

Those asteroids(*) (or whatever they’re called) are for my mom.  She doesn’t like swear words, and even though I’m 40, I still think about those things.  I rarely drink in front of my parents either.  Occasionally my mom will have a margarita, and If mom’s drinking, it’s GAME ON.  One time my entire family was out to dinner, and I ordered a large margarita, and it came in a glass roughly the size of one of those orange Home Depot buckets, and everybody got busy making plans for how to help me finish it.  I played along and pretended I needed help, but secretly was pissed that I had to share.  Don’t get the wrong idea about me though, I’m not really a big drinker…I think 5’10” is about average for an adult male.

40 is a weird age.  I don’t trust teenagers, but I still think adults are out to get me.  I think young people who think they know everything are hilariously annoying, but most of the grownups I know don’t know shit either, so who’s worse, the misguided youth, or the smug adult?  I think picking the better of those two is actually like trying to decide between barfing through your nose, or just swallowing it.

My kids still like me, but each year that passes I see them getting cooler, as I keep getting less, and less cool. I’m not going to hold that against them though…yet.  I can foresee the day when the cool scales completely shift, and instead of going out gracefully, I’ll probably do something stupid, like pretend it was intentional.  I’ll most likely be found walking around the house in tightey whiteys scratching my butt while my son’s girlfriend stands horrified by the front door, not sure whether to acknowledge my presence, or secretly slip out never to return.  I can’t think of much more pathetic than a dude in his late 40s trying to act un-cool in a last-ditch effort to hang onto what little is left of his cool.  My poor family.

As I sat down to write this, I intended it to be a half-time speech of sorts.  Something to pump me up, and get me ready to kick some serious ass in the last two quarters.  The game is tied,  I’m rested, I’m hydrated, and I’m ready to go.   ****BUZZZZZZER**** (sounding the start of the second half).  Go Tom Go!

“…uh, yeah, could I get a time out?”

Thing2 found my 33 year old T-Ball Jersey, and has worked it in to heavy rotation.

If only that shirt could talk.  I batted .1000 that year, so the groupies were abundant, and grape kool-aide flowed like water.  Irvine Youth Athletic Association represent!

Hi Everybody!

My next shirt on TeeFury goes on sale on Sunday at 12:00 AM.  I don’t think this one will sell as many as the last one, but I like this one better.

So, go buy some.

I figure if each person buys about 25,000 shirts apiece, then by my calculations, that would be awesome…squared.

Christmas is coming, and if you have kids, and you’re a bastard like me, you probably find it difficult not to hang it over their heads.  I try not to do it, because it feels so wrong, but I can admit that I have used the prospect of not being invited to Jesus’ birthday party as a tool in order to get my slaves children to do my bidding.

Santa Christ’s real gift was giving parents a month when they can blackmail their children.  Normally they will ignore my first and second requests for doing a chore, but jump at the third when it’s prefaced with the phrase, “You know, Christmas is coming…”.  The power of Christ compels them.

You know what’s another great gift from the heavens?  The fact that as the dogs we love get older and older, they begin to suck more and more (so we’ll miss them less when they finally go live on a farm).

I love our 13.5 year old Greyhound Daisy to death.  She’s super sweet, but she’s also starting to super suck.  She’s  lost her hearing, so she doesn’t listen, and since she’s Jewish, threats about Christmas don’t work on her.  She’s on peepee medicine to keep her from squirting urine when she sits, or walks, or stands, or lays down, or eats, or drinks, or looks, or breathes…you get the idea, she’s like a water balloon with a slow leak.  She also apparently hates the cold, because instead of using the brand new doggie doors, she thinks it’s better to shit up the garage.  She’s also started getting confused, and standing around in weird places, sometimes outside where it’s cold, and after an hour of that,  she’ll come inside, and pee in the garage.  Thanks Daisy.
I have started laying “peepee pads” on the floor in the garage for her to defile, and I think she likes that, but she kept missing them, so now I have basically installed wall to wall peepee pad carpeting in my new garage.  Nice.

Dear Santa,

Thirteen and a half  is a pretty good run right?  Don’t make me spell it out.

Love,

tom