Rock You Like A Hurr-cane

Me: This storm is no joke
Her: We're such pansies
Her: People lose they minds when the water is ankle deep
Me: Shoot, the water is almost up to this weather dude's thighs on CNN
Her: What's Olie Williams say on the Blaccuweather report?
Me: lol It's a hurr-cane!
Her: LOL
Her: It's rainin sideways!
Me: Bitches haterade be flyin' outta they hands and shit
Her: LMAO!

Tis the morning after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the East Coast and it's a little unbelievable to look outside and see water and downed trees everywhere. It's like something out of a movie. I've yet to venture outside, even though the winds have died down considerably and the rain has subsided a bit. If anyone is gonna accidentally step on a downed wire and get electrocuted, it would be this mother lover right here so I'm not even gonna tempt fate. No doubt that storm was scary but it seems as though it was far less catastrophic than predicted. Hopefully it weakens now since it'll be on land for awhile. Stay safe kids!

Black Eyes And Black Guys

Best Friend: You can't really tell now that it's healing. But it looked awful when it first happened.
Me: Yeah, those hurt like a mofo at first. After that they just look ugly.
Best Friend: Yeah? So glad I've never had a black guy.
Me: Um...okay. Not sure why you would mention that now.
Best Friend: Um because it's relevant to the convo?
Me: I've never had one either. Just for the record.
Best Friend: Liar. You had one in 5th grade, the week of school pictures.
Best Friend: I remember because I'm the one who gave it to you lol
Me: LOL. I had one in 5th grade huh? One that you gave to me?
Best Friend: Yes. Why is that funny?
Me: Re-read your texts from the beginning of this subject
Best Friend: LMAO!!
Best Friend: Maybe I just felt like stating I'd never been with a black guy!
Me: lol Riiiiight. That was hysterical
Best Friend: LOL Your texts are even better once I realize what you were referring to.
Best Friend: You could've told me, jerk lol
Me: LOL Where's the fun in that?
Me: You saying you gave me a black guy in fifth grade? Now that's comedy
Best Friend: LOL Yes. It is.

I was asked (read: am being forced) to add an addendum to the above conversation. My best friend freely and without coercion admitted to hitting me in the head with a baseball bat, which resulted in bodily injury to yours truly. Despite this FREE AND CLEAR ADMISSION, I am to relay the entire story so as not to damage her (supposedly) pristine reputation.
It was the summer of our tenth year and we were all playing baseball in the back yard. My team was leading and I was next up to bat when I heard someone call my name. I turned around and was viciously hit with a baseball bat. Not only was my eye blackened (and my modeling career ended) but my soul was shattered upon realizing it was my own best friend who had delivered the blow. It is a day that lives in infamy. Novels were written about the incident. Poems were written about my pain. At least, that's how I remember it.
Although some parts of that story are true, 99.999999% was dramatized for the purposes of this post. So what really happened? We were playing baseball and it was summer and I was the lucky recipient of a black eye thanks to a swing from a baseball bat my best friend was using. That's all true. However there was no malicious intent behind that swing. Far from it. I got hit because I'm a moron who didn't stand far enough away from the action. See, she swung the bat while l was standing about a foot behind her and not paying attention. Her follow through caught me right in the left eye and I dropped like a sack of potatoes. The bat was some kind of foam and plastic hybrid and was solid on the inside so it had more heft to it than a 1980's plastic bat, but not as much heft as a wooden or metal bat (thank god). My eye swelled up and was literally black, not purple or blue, by night's end. Of course this happened the week school started so I began fifth grade looking like I'd been in a bar brawl. School pictures were the week after and by then my eye had begun to heal and was a yellowish-purple color. That made for some stellar pictures. I hadn't thought about this story in ages, not until tonight's textual difficulties. And I barely remember it. I'm glad the best friend can fill in the blanks.

Tell Me All Your Thoughts On God

I had a long dinner and conversation with my best friend last night and it's been ages since we've done that. It's kind of amazing how you can know someone for 31 years and still have things to talk about. And our time together is never boring. While waiting to be seated we stood next to a party of six; two older women, two women in their 40's and two dudes about the same age. I was already annoyed that one of the guys kept bumping into me when one of the older ladies pulled out a big ass camera, with flash, and started taking photos of something. The flash was so bright that I turned my head to see what picture was so important that it was worth blinding me and I saw it was the other older woman's birthday. They were referring to her as their grandmother and she was holding a taped up and very full gift bag as the camera flashed yet again. So what did grandma get for her birthday? Shampoo. No lie. I watched her open the bag and pull out two full size bottles of Pantene (shampoo AND conditioner! She's di lucky!). She seemed seriously overwhelmed and perhaps even speechless. I turned away from the scene so as not to laugh in anyone's face and then heard one if the dudes telling grandma about some product that had gotten his and wife's teeth incredibly clean. I assume grandma also got some kind of toothbrush judging from the rest of the commentary. I felt bad. I mean, it's not like we ever got any of our grandmothers skydiving lessons or anything, but we also never did all of their birthday shopping at a CVS. And why not just give her a gift card or something? Hell, even just paying for dinner would have been better than the gift package she actually received.
We were seated not long after that and dinner was great until some dude at a table behind us raised his voice and drew the attention of a few people. A few minutes later it became clear that everyone at that table was involved in a heated discussion about religion. Although I'm not particularly a religious lad, I do enjoy debating with others about the subject. I'm fascinated by different viewpoints and why people believe the way they do. It sounded like these people had been having a quiet discussion for awhile but it escalated when this guy threw out a blanket statement about how if everyone were just given copies of the Bible they would realize that Christianity is the only "true religion". He even went so far as to say that Catholics, Mormons, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and Hindus are the reasons that war exists in the world. Because Lord knows ya'll Christians don't fight amongst yourselves or anything, it's everyone else's fault the world is fucked up. Mr. Personality's dinner companions took offense to what he said and a battle ensued. I'm never surprised by how many narrow-minded people still exist in the world, especially when it comes to religion. But dude had some cojones to say that as loud as he did in a crowded restaurant and I'm sure the best friend and I weren't the only ones to take notice and begin listening in. They quieted down after that but we could still hear the occasional loud-ish argument between them. The best friend joked that we should add our two cents and go tell him there is no god, just to stir the pot. "Maybe he's rich and he'll hit you and you can sue him and claim racial profiling...and violation of your religious freedom...yeah, you should go over there," she said (and now you know which one of us had wine with dinner). Instead we toasted each other for being the reason war exists and picked up the conversation we'd been having before things got crazy.
As has been documented here, my religious views are quite eclectic but I do believe in god. For some reason, people are surprised when they hear this. I guess because I just don't take any of it too seriously. Yes, I think there's a god but no, I don't believe we're all supposed to devote our lives to "serving" him. And if he intended everyone to be a Christian, then why did he give people free will in the first place? If you really believe the world is god's creation then it would stand to reason that everything in it is also his creation; all the religions, all the conflicts, all the gay people and trans gender people and every race in existence. My beef with religion has never involved questioning whether there is a god (although he and I were not on the greatest of terms for some time), I've always believed there is, but it is the fact that so many "religious" people pick and choose what parts of their religion apply to them. You're supposed to love all people but you cast out anyone with a different sexual orientation. You get hitched in a church and take what are supposed to be vows between you, your spouse and the big man saying you'll be faithful and parted only by death, but then proceed to have an affair and get divorced. You're supposed to be tolerant of all religions, yet you condemn anyone who isn't a "true believer" in your eyes. There is a lot of grey area when it comes to the topic of religion, which makes this guy's blanket statement even more ridiculous. It's like me saying, 'Man, all of those Christians are biggots and hate gays'. It's obviously not true and it's not only Christians who can be discriminatory. I cringe every time someone talks about making this country the "Christian Nation it was" because it never was that, it's always been accepting of every religion and it should always remain that way.
As our conversation and dinner were winding down, we saw the wait staff congregate around a table. We heard them begin to sing "Happy Birthday" and we both knew it had to be grandma they were serenading. All I could think was how sad it was that having total strangers sing to her was the highlight of her evening. Even as I was falling asleep last night, I couldn't help but think about it. I don't have anymore grandmother's to give gifts to. But if I did, I would totally steal their idea because any of my grandma's would have found it hilarious. I also would have been smacked. But it would've been worth it.

50 Shades Of Crazy

I used to get messages from quite the cast of characters when I was on a dating site. One chick wondered out loud (via email) what kind of things I was into sexually. A supposedly bi-sexual dude asked me if I'd be into having a three way with him and a woman. Another woman called me a "hot drink [she'd] like to drink down" (didn't make any sense to me either). I also got a message from a woman who was into poly-amory, which is basically an open relationship with the possibility of simultaneously being in other relationships with other people. I'm definitely not into that but we had a lot in common and she said she was just looking for friends so we exchanged a few messages. But it soon became clear she was looking for more than just a friend and I wasn't interested in that. I don't really understand the concept of poly-amorous relationships. I may be very open sexually (hence my being a whore in a previous life) but I'm fairly traditional when it comes to relationships. One person's feelings and habits are enough to adjust to, why on earth would you wanna deal with multiple people? I'm guessing part of the appeal is the openness and being allowed to sleep with as many other people as you want, whenever you want. But even that seems like too much to take on. I've been in a situation where I'm dating around but even then I usually only slept with one person (three at the most, not that I should brag about it). The point is that juggling three people was enough and I don't get the appeal of spending your life doing that. But to each their own.

A friend was telling me today about someone she knows who is an active poly-amory...er. It would seem as though there are few boundaries in her relationship, there are always new stories of random hook-ups (women, men, women and men at the same time, it really doesn't seem to matter to her), and funny or just plain weird crap that happened while in the midst of a hook-up. She doesn't keep any of it to herself either so all of her friends are desensitized to most of the stuff she tells them. But the most recent story is one that has grossed out everyone who has crossed its path. Miss Poly-Amory USA showed up at two in the morning to this friend's house with pizza and beer. She talked for a few minutes with the friend before inviting herself into another friend's bedroom for late night, I-don't-care-if-you-want-it-or-not nookie. The next day, my friend's roomie began telling her about what he'd woken up to an hour after they'd done the deed. The friend told him she really didn't know or care to know any details but he proceeded to tell her that their mutual friend is a freak and he felt it necessary to go into way too vivid detail as to what happened. As this story is being relayed to me, my Curious George self couldn't not ask what it was that had so traumatized the boy. My friend went a step further and said that her roomie told her it was something that had never been done to him before and that he wasn't really a fan of, and also that it especially confused him because it wasn't done in the heat of the moment, it was something she began doing to him before he was awake. Did I take the hint and stop asking questions? Well of course I didn't. So she tells me he said, 'I woke up to her licking my...you know...' and she thankfully leaves that sentence there. And that was enough. Actually, maybe even that was too much. I knew what she meant and we were both grossed out, so we moved on to a new conversation. But...wow. Just...wow. Few things render me speechless but that story was certainly one of them.

We've all heard our friends overshare details about their sexual escapades, some of them funny and some not so much. It never ceases to amaze me what people are into. There's a show on TLC called "Strange Sex" that profiles people with interesting fetishes and situations. One guy got off by hearing a balloon pop. Another lady claimed she could climax without ever being touched and taught classes on it. And let us not forget the millions of horny housewives who are obsessed with the 50 Shades books, which I think are terrible. Granted, I am not the target audience for that, but I read excerpts from it with a girl friend and we laughed our asses off. Seriously, I hadn't laughed that hard in eons. It was terrible writing and the "kinky" stuff in the book wasn't really all that kinky, but women around the world can't get enough. What really puzzles me about it is that millions of women apparently didn't know that they can find better erotica via Google for free, yet they read this crap because it's more socially acceptable. Cuz god forbid the people you call friends know you have sex or read about sex or know anything about sex, right? However those books illustrate my point quite nicely in that the hullabaloo (that's right, I said it) over them gives the impression that some women found it close to impossible to ask their men for what they wanted in bed. I don't understand why though. I know at some point everyone feels like they're gonna be judged over what they're into behind closed doors but who is gonna know besides you and the person you're sleeping with? And especially if you're gonna marry somebody, you should have everything in the open. As long as you're not into anything illegal, you should have at it with the fetishes and fantasies. It really is a shame more people don't think that way. Some people are still stuck on the 1950's stereotype of women having to be all proper and submissive and by those outdated standards, half the women in the world today are nymphomaniacs. And I really don't get why it's so difficult to ask for something while in the middle of doing the deed. I mean, everyone's horny and not thinking clearly and dudes us especially are willing to do whatever you want because the blood isn't flowing to our brains at that moment, so it seems like the perfect time to say, 'Hey fool, I like/want/need you to do this'. But still the horny housewives can't say anything? If you're that sheepish discussing sex with someone you're spending your life with then you married the wrong person. Of course our attitudes and openness about sex are also affected by how we were raised. Some people will always consider anything other than vanilla sex "dirty", while others build bondage rooms in their basements. It's whatever floats your boat but let this story be a lesson to make sure the chick who sneaks into your room in the middle of the night isn't too freaky. Because that story has done more damage to those of us who have passed it along than the actual experience did to this dude.

But I Want It!!

I was talking to a friend last week about my newest iThing and all of a sudden she tells me she's going to get an iPad. I remember her saying a year ago that she'd love to have one but it was a VERY out of reach thing at that time. However she has a friend who is getting a new iPad and is going to sell her his old one at a "deeply discounted price". My immediate reaction to this news was to ask why she was buying it. Obviously a lot of us would love to have an iPad or some kind of tablet computer so I wasn't asking why she would want one in general, but why she felt the need to get one right now. She's currently unemployed and will most likely be moving out of her $1500 a month apartment soon because of her financial situation. It doesn't make sense to go blowing money on toys and things you don't need when you can't even afford food (and sometimes she can't). Her response to my question was, "because I want one". Oh. Well then.
Maybe it's because I'm an old man now but I don't understand this culture of needing to have the newest and best stuff immediately. Technology advances so quickly anyway, and I guess that's why some people have to be on top of it. But is it really going to kill you to not have an iPhone 5 for the year and a half that it's popular? Are you going to be thinking, "oh man, I wish I'd had that iPad 3, but I didn't and it will forever haunt me" on your deathbed? I highly doubt it. At the end of the day, it's just stuff. I love my iPhone but if all Apple products were eradicated from the earth, I would be able to survive. We all got on fine before Apple ruled the world, we would learn to live without it if we could. Growing up poor teaches you do many things you're thankful for later on in life. We never had a ton of new stuff, especially technology-wise, but we didn't really miss it. You can't miss what you don't have. We didn't really start getting on the technology bandwagon (aside from Nintendo) until mom got a job at a pawn shop. We got our first computer, DVD player, mp3 player and countless other things from that store. But it was never because we needed to have any of it, we got that stuff after saving up and being able to afford it. Now people go thousands of dollars into debt for things they don't need, they just want them because everyone else has them. Like everyone else, I thought iPods were amazing when they were first introduced but they were like $250 so I knew I wouldn't be getting one. I still use the first one I ever did get and it was a gift bought for less than that steep price tag. I think I paid very little attention to the iPhone's introduction and even less to the iPad's. I knew it didn't affect me since I wouldn't be shelling out three or four hundred dollars for either one. Even when I did start researching getting a smartphone, I want even looking at iPhones because they were still $150 and up and that's way too much for a cell phone, smart or not. I ended up with one because it was within my budget and I wouldn't have purchased it otherwise. I'm not one to go out of my way for the latest, greatest thing. If it's relevant to me and I can afford it, I'll buy it. In her situation, I would be turning my attention towards finding a place to live instead of buying toys I don't need.

Oh Hockey, Where Art Thou?

I am an AVID NHL fan. I become borderline obsessive about it once the season starts, going over team strengths and weaknesses and stats. July 1st is the day players can sign with new teams and it's like Christmas for me, I clear the date so I can watch updates about who ended up where. I. Love. Hockey. So I'm both peeved and sad that there is no hockey to watch right now. October 11th would be my Colorado Avalanche's first regular season game but that's obviously not going to happen. I don't think the NHL will play anymore hockey in the year 2012 and I'm starting to doubt there will be any in the first half of 2013. They lost an entire season in 2004 to arguing over a new CBA and no one seems all that interested in avoiding the same thing this season. They're fighting over money, of course, and neither the players or the owners and commissioner are blameless for things getting where they are. They all knew this was coming but chose to just cool their heels all summer instead of trying to work things out. I cannot stand the NHL's commissioner (I don't care for the commissioners of any of the four major sports, I think they're all idiots but maybe that's a pre-req for the job) because he doesn't seem to understand anything about hockey. I'm not even sure he likes hockey honestly, but he's determined to remain commissioner until he dies. I think in order to be the commissioner of a sport, you should have to have played or been involved in the sport in some way. You shouldn't just be able to say, 'You know what? I like hockey. I shall appoint myself king of hockey and make all the rules", but I digress. The commissioner went on every show that would have him after the last lockout proclaiming that revenues were up and that the CBA was working for everybody. So it's interesting that the NHL opened these negotiations with a laughable offer trying to dock the players salaries. If it worked for everyone then, why is it not working now? The problem with this dude is makes questionable decisions constantly and then uses CBA negotiations to try and correct (or not correct) those decisions. A friend of mine told me a few days ago that the players don't just want what they're entitled to out of these negotiations, ideally they want the commissioner forced out. I'm sure that won't happen but I guess you take your shot while you can.
The last time the NHL locked out, several of its players moved overseas to Sweden or Russia or Switzerland to play hockey, and the same thing is happening this time. I read an article this morning in my hometown newspaper about the newly appointed Colorado captain and a couple of other players making the move overseas this week. The article was very critical of the players who are on the move, saying that it hurts their case in negotiations if they're all "jumping ship" and moving overseas to play. Supposedly the writer thinks it takes away from that whole solidarity thing. I can't say I agree though. At this point, there is no reason for anyone to believe that there will be a season so what is the point of sitting at home and practicing everyday when you're not sure you'll even get the chance to play? Some of the big name players will draw large paychecks from moving overseas but it will be nothing compared to what they would be making in the NHL. Nor will the accommodations be as top notch as they are here. And the younger players will be playing for very little cash over there. These players aren't going for the money, they're going because they want to play hockey. Moving overseas isn't necessarily about a breakdown in solidarity or going for a cash grab, it's about not getting rusty. Even if they chose to stay here and wait it out and practice, that's not going to help them if a deal is struck and they have to be back on the ice in a game situation at the drop of a hat. Rusty hockey players aren't what people are paying to see. The NHL is making this harder on themselves with everyday they don't get a deal done because they won't be able to start the season until they get back all the players who went overseas, which also means getting them out of those contracts they signed to play there. It's gonna be a mess if it happens. But that's a big IF.