If Rob and Mike were in Charge: 2010

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A holiday related post, or an unsolicited attack on my friend's mother

Neither Rob nor I have written in ages. It’s not that we don’t have things to say, it just that we haven’t had the time to write. At some point he and I will work out an actual schedule for posting and might even set a schedule to leverage some of our funny friends as pinch hitters when we are busy.

That said, since it’s a lazy short week, and I’m sure lots of you are looking for something to read while you watch the clock at work, I decided to dust off this old gem, from our dear friend Ryan Loughlin.

You see, it is Thanksgiving season and many of us are geared up for the greatest of food Holidays. Unfortunately my buddy Ryan lived most of his life in fear and dread of this day. He hated Thanksgiving and could never understand why everyone enjoyed the day and the meal. After years of soul searching and living independently the root cause of his angst was uncovered.

Ryan hated Thanksgiving because his mother was an awful cook.

I mean legitimately bad, bordering on abusive. Anyhow the post that follows is a top ten list comprised by Ryan describing the 10 worst meals his mother created during his youth….

Enjoy and sincere apologies to Ryan's dear mother. If this makes it back to her I’m pretty sure she will be upset at both Ryan for writing this and me for posting it.

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10. Mom's Homemeade Chili- A particularly poor attempt at an ethnic dish. My mother would insist on overloading this chili with kidney beans (a pet peeve of mine as virtually ALL great chili's are meat only, no beans). But what made this chili that much worse was my mom refused to serve it in a proper way, (perhaps in a bowl with some cheddar cheese?) instead opting for no cheese and dumping the whole mess over bland white rice. It looked like a dog took a crap on a pile of rice and my mom called it "dinner". I suspect my mom knew it was bad because it wasn't made that frequently and this was one of the only meals in which I was granted special permission to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of eating the disaster that was being served.

9. Mom's Chicken Parm- Chicken parm is a tough dish to screw up as it is very basic and does not include many ingredients. Incredibly my mom took on this challenge and managed to make a slam dunk meal taste awful. How did she do it? Well my mom's overwhelming cheapness is the real culprit here. Instead of buying thin sliced chicken cutlets my mom decided it was more economical to buy the full thick chicken breasts. This in general would not be a problem because any decent chef would simply slice the cutlets into thinner pieces at home. But my mother and the words "decent chef" are rarely seen next to each other, so of course she left them thick, overcooked and cheaply loaded with one slice each of shop rite brand mozzarella. An embarrassing meal at best.

8. Mom's Burgers- I could never figure out how Mom managed to make these taste so bad. In theory they were just burgers cooked in a frying pan. Somehow they were void of all flavor and made you feel sick once you were done eating them. That and they never featured any lettuce, tomato, cheese or spices of any kind. Just a plain burger on a bun with ketchup. Welfare style.

7. Mom's Mac n' Cheese- This dish was particularly offensive to anyone who has any respect for mac and cheese whatsoever. Another example of a "hard to screw up" dish that my mother made a mockery of. Her true folly on this one was her inexplicable decision to add chunks of tomato to it before placing it in a casserole dish to cook in the oven. What happened? Well exactly what you might expect. The tomatoes (which are naturally loaded with water) managed to soak the entire thing in a gross trough of warm water, which in turn managed to make the cheese not melt properly, and so what you were left with was an uninspired pile of ingredients each remaining virtually unmixed next to each other. Plain white macaroni laying sadly beside tomatoes drooping over improperly melted chunks of low fat cheddar cheese all swimming in a bath of lukewarm water courtesy of my mom's culinary prowess. Awful.

6. Mom's Cauliflower- Truly an awful vegetable no matter what, but my mom's routinely smelled as if someone had farted onto a plate of vegetables. I pointed this out to my mother not that long ago and she was highly insulted. This was a food that when forced to eat as a child i would literally put on my tongue and swallow with water like a fart flavored advil. Just gross.

5. Mom's Casseroles- There were many and each one of these were a nightmare not to be believed. Each featured ingredients that should simply never be served on the same plate. One of the worst featured potato chips that literally tasted as if they had been soaked in tap water for a half hour to wilt and then paired with meat and sour cream. Another featured a chicken dish flavored with lemon that was so sour I can only describe it as "wince inducing". Luckily as time went on these were made less frequently but in the 80's they were inescapable at 1008 Linden Ave.

4. Mom's Meatloaf- Another food ruined by my mother's refusal to add any spices to any meat. Just tasted like a big dry hunk of chopmeat that had ketchup slathered over the top of it. Took me years to accept the fact that this meal might actually taste good when prepared elsewhere

3. Mom's Potroast- This one was another treat that my mom would whip up far too frequently considering how poorly it tasted. Bone dry and spice free I literally refused to eat potroast until I tried it at a restaurant at disneyworld of all places and was blown away by how delicious it was. Thanks Mom.

2.Mom's Pork Tenderloin- Nothing even remotely "tender" about this loin. As described before, this meal was among my mother’s worst ever. Desert dry flavorless gray meat cooked on an electric George Foreman barbecue grill. Was once served for my uncle and cousins at a family get together and when my uncle tried to compliment my mother on the meal by saying it was "delicious" there was audible laughter from the crowd.

1. Mom's "Baked Chicken"- Truly THE most hated dish in the Loughlin house growing up. My mother would force us to eat this on a regular basis despite the fact that in 20 years of living with my parents not once did i ever hear anyone comment on this meal other than to bash it openly and often. It was fully deserving of its trashing as well. The meal consisted of a 12 pound bird mercilessly overcooked to the point where taking a simple bite without gravy would result in uncontrollable coughing. It was like trying to swallow a pack of cigarettes that somebody left in the trunk of a car for the summer. Just unbearable.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Beatin the Beat

Never Fall in Love in Miami?

Wow, what an impressive season of Jersey Shore. I had my expectations set high for the season finale and I should have known better. What have I been saying about high expectations.....you can only be let down....which I was for the season finale. Too much going on, too many days worth of footage, jumping all over the place. I had very low expectations going into Jersey Shore 2, so overall my ranking would have to be at least an 8 out of 10. Lets dive into some items about it

---Are we watching the Situation become a date rapist on TV? His tactits, while questionable, especially to Pauly D his supposed wingman, are borderline domestic violence/pre date rape. All he is missing is the Rohyphenol (roofies). I'm surprised they even show some of the scenes that can be borderline awkward to watch. How many times did he screw over Pauly with his antics? I can remember at least 3 in the past few episodes. He acted like a baby pouting in the club when everyone was having fun while Snookie's friend was in town and Vinny was with Ramona. All around his ranking as a TV personality has gone way down in my book. Last year he was a breakout star and this year he's like a spoiled TV kid star. He was trying waaaaaaay to hard to be the coolest person on Jersey Shore.

---I think someone should rewrite the word to Mrs. Robinson to include Ronnie. Something like this:
Where have you gone juice head Ronnie O,
The guidos turn their lonely eyes to you (Woo woo woo).
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Ron Ron has left and gone away" (Hey hey hey, hey hey hey)
I think it would be appropriate. In like a lion, out like a lamb for this kid. He started out like a F5 tornado (thats the worst kind) and ended up like a few raindrops. The saddest character demise of all time, and all because of the sweetest bitch you'll ever meet.

--Will the Pauly D action figure that talks be out for Christmas? I doubt they even make one but put me down for 3 if they do. Here is what it would say: "the cabs are here", "it's t-shirt time", "stop stalking my life",
"My hair didn't even move an inch and I was in & out of the water. My hair's windproof, waterproof, soccer proof, motocycle proof. I'm not sure if my hair's bulletproof, I'm not willing to try that.", "When I go into the club I have a game plan, I don’t wanna waste my time and take home a girl that just wants to hang out, I just wanna get to the business… so. you light it up and then you move on & at the end of the night you see who you end up with", "Well they’re Technic 1200 M5G’s…they’re not regular turntables, they’re the best turntables you can buy", I'm sure there are more. Does he have a sever case of ADHD? He needs adult ritalin for sure.
Still he's the best character on the show and I'm glad they focused in on him a lot. Also, I bet he could take Ronnie in a fight. The rage that he lets out when he get pissed is crazy.
And he kept all the numbers he got for the entire tie in Miami...classic.

--Vinny-- breakout star of the season. Standing up to the Situation, banging a hot model, part of "MVP" (this is probably one of the best things these guys made up), he's growing up right in front of our eyes.

--DTF---enough said

--This video from college humor is amazing. Jersey Shore Video game....holy shit I was LOL-ing for real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzLi_y4Vv5s&feature=player_embedded

I have not seen the South Park episode yet, but I heard it was great.

Miami turned out to be a good idea. I think if they were there in a warmer season we’d get more beach time. That’s been an odd thing, there is such little beach footage. Either they don’t go often, the footage sucks, or its complicated with random people. Also, I have a feeling season 3 will take a page from Real World and they won’t have jobs. FYI---no one wants to see them working some stupid job.

All in all and Amazing season and looking forward to going back to Jersey for 2.B

Monday, October 11, 2010

Post from a ringer- Guest blog from Ryan Loughlin

Its time for a pinch hitter… I have about four or five different rants in the back of my head that I need to tap out and share with you all. In fact just last night my wife placed a blog specific request for me to flip out about high-end chefs serving food in egg shells. “This needs more publicity” she declared as thought the 100 or so hits our blog posts get are just the beginning of the media groundswell to come…

Anyhow, unfortunately I have not gotten around to formulating all of my thoughts, but that doesn’t me that you should be denied a Monday morning chuckle.

Hence I’m calling an audible and bringing in a ringer. Without further ado here are three rambles and rants from my good friend Ryan Loughlin…

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Ryan on Cinnamon flavored candy-

Ok folks...Its time to address a topic that I feel has been overlooked for some time...its time to clear the good name of cinnamon.

I have sat by for what basically amounts to my entire life watching various chewing gum, candy and breath mint companies attempt to convince me (and the rest of the world) that cinnamon is somehow the flavor equivalent of a relentless raging inferno.

Guess what folks? CINNAMON IS NOT HOT.

It blows my mind that I have to even argue this point, but after 32 years of "Sizzlin Cinnamon Schnapps", "Hot Tamales", "Red Hots", "WarHeads" and other fraudulent products being thrust my way, I have finally decided to at least attempt to put a stop to it by calling these companies on their bullshit.

Am I the only member of the general public to notice that this particular spice has a somewhat mild sweet flavor? Think about it, when was the last time you went into Cinnabon, placed your order and the girl behind the counter responded with "How hot do you want it- Mild? Medium or Five Alarm'?" This never happens, because any reasonable human being knows that its just not that spicy of a flavor to begin with. Nobody is competing for bragging rights to see how many cinnamon rolls they can stand to eat without a glass of water. I watch man vs food, nobody is intimidated by cinnamon. This is nonsense. The candy industry has hijacked this spice simply because they couldn't think up a way of making a "hot" candy without using a savory flavor unsuitable for candy. Well sorry candy folks, lying isn't the answer. I've had it. I want the good name of cinnamon cleared once and for all.

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Ryan on bumper stickers-

Ok, so the other day I am driving on the highway and a crusty red ford taurus pulls into my lane in front of me. Now the car itself was relatively unattractive (ditto for the driver as well) and in what I can only assume was an ill fated attempt to "spruce up" the viciously rusting bumper of his car, this man had purchased several bumper stickers.

Why people buy bumper stickers is something I will never figure out, does anyone put these things on the back of their car, take a step back and say to themselves "Yup, now THAT looks gorgeous! Mission accomplished."

Anyway as I look closer at this car I realize that the bumper stickers in question both directly relate to the fact that this man is evidently employed as an elevator repair man. Not to knock elevator repair men, but honestly what on earth would convince this man that ANYONE on the road would give a crap about the fact that he fixes elevators for a living??? And why the overall gushing pride over his job in the first place? Is he hoping to make others jealous? Well, as far as I am aware "elevator repair man" ranks fairly low on the list of dream jobs. Its just really not something a lot of people have grand aspirations of becoming. Nobody is going to look at that bumper sticker and go "Whoa- an elevator repair man? God damn, that guy is living the dream!"

Anyway, one of the stickers says something like "Proud member of elevator repair union 541" (or something of an equal "who gives a shit" level). After taking a moment to be impressed by his union status, my eyes naturally gaze over at bumper sticker number two hoping for something a bit more intriguing. And I find it.

Sticker 2 reads: "Elevator repair men do it up and down!"

Now, seriously folks, just what the fuck does that mean? It has to be one of the crappiest of the already indescribably lame genre of bumper sticker/seaside boardwalk t-shirt sex jokes. But really what is this joke even getting at? It barely makes any freakin sense.

Am I to assume that these repair men are bragging about the fact that during sex they move their bodies "up and down"? What on earth is unique about that? I'd like someone to find me the girl who sits around saying "Gee, I really like sex, but so many of the men I sleep with insist on doing it "side to side" instead of up and down...now where can I find the kind of man that can really give me the pounding that I need?....oh of course! THE ELEVATOR REPAIR MAN!

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Ryan on job advertisements-

So I was trolling Craigslist the other day looking for a new job when I saw an ad for a teaching position at a nursery school that read- "2 year old teacher wanted".

The ad went on and on continuing to repeat that absurd wording (which of course implies that they wish to HIRE a two year old to teach children). It’s somewhat appalling that a business that is designed to provide education to young children can't figure out how to properly put into words that they are actually looking for someone to teach two year olds rather than to hire "a two year old teacher". Anyway I decided my fictitious two year old son "Ryan Jr." should apply for the job. Here is what I sent the school:

To whom it may concern,

After reading the ad you had posted on Craigslist, I think I may just be exactly what you have been looking for. I possess the rare dual talent of being both a two year old AND a teacher! To be honest, I have been having trouble finding work as of late because I have found it is rare that more traditional employers are looking to hire staff members my age. To me this smacks of discrimination pure and simple, the likes of which not seen since the civil rights movement, but alas, there seems to be little I can do to change the policies of these close minded institutes. In any case, I assure you I am worldly, zestful, highly qualified, and almost completely toilet trained! I applaud you for your willingness to take a chance on someone so young, and fear not, for while I may be young in years, I have the intellect of a wise old owl. If forced to describe my weaknesses, I might say that on occasion I have been known to scream, cry, whimper and carry on if not given exactly what I want (or if I haven't had my nap at the proper time), and as I mentioned before the occasional bathroom-related accident in my pants is a real possibility, but I assure you none of these issues are out of the ordinary for those my age. In fact they are quite common! I also have a bit of a problem with sharing, but that I’m working on. Whether or not my students can show the proper degree of respect for an instructor who is clearly sporting a soiled pair of elastic wasted jeans remains to be seen, but I am confident I can handle that little SNAFU! Anyway, once again let me thank you for being such an open minded institute of learning and for being willing to look past the minor drawbacks of hiring an instructor so new to solid foods. I am available to come in for an interview on short notice and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Ryan Loughlin Jr

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

TV Mailbag

Here are my answers to some email we've gotten over the summer......

1. What will happen with Glee? --Wes- Philadelphia

Interesting question. They will be faced with a huge problem that has faced high school shows for as long as I can remember......the kids have to graduate at some point. We've seen it with shows like 90210, Dawson's Creek, Saved by the Bell, Friday Night Lights and more. The thing is, if the show is more about the story/plot than the characters, you can graduate kids and introduce new ones. This has worked with Friday Night Lights. FNL has kept around 1 or two graduates who are "townie" now. The show is about football and middle america, not the characters. This is where 90210 failed after high school. The show was about these kids living in Beverly Hills and their lives. Even new character introductions seemed weird on 90210. Hopefully Glee will take the path that has kids graduate and move on. If not the show will just get awkward. The only problem I see is Rachel is clearly the star of the show and replacing her could be tricky. On a side note, will the Asian Guy and the other guy in the glee club get any lines this season?

2. What was on your summer TV? - Galen- Spokane

Big Brother dominated my summer TV. IT was a great season with lost of laughs. House guests like Brittney, Hayden and Lane made me laugh 3 times a week. The Wire also dominated my summer TV. I watched the 1st 3 seasons and came to a realization. I would never want to get stuck in inner city Baltimore. Which led me to this old thought. About 10 years ago I was in Baltimore for a bachelor party. Leaving out names, 2 of the guys brought some girl back from the bar and she wanted drugs. Thinking they were gonna get some action they took her into the inner city to find such drugs. They were gone for a long time. Nervous long. After watching this show I would never let them do this. The show almost makes me scared to go to the good parts of Baltimore, b/c I know the bad parts cant be too far away.

3. What was the best movie of the summer? - Patty, Chicago

You must not know me well at all b/c you know I don't go to the movies.....ever. I take that back. The best movie I saw in the theatre this summer was a kids flick, Cats & Dogs: The Return of Kitty Galore. Why was it the best? Because it was the only one I saw. And I missed a chunk b/c I was chasing Jackson around the theatre and out in the lobby. I do Netflix. Big Fan. I like it so much I would do free advertising. The addition of the ability to watch instantly to your TV with some titles is a great addition.

4. What shows are you excited for this fall? --Kyle, Queens

The Event looks like it could be a cool show. I;ve heard its the new Lost. Big problem there. Nothing will be the new Lost. If you are gonna compare it to Lost you will probably be disappointed. How about we just watch it and see if we like it. Why do things have to be "the next" anything? Can't they just be what they are on their own? I am also curious to see if Modern Family can keep it up. They were the break out show last year. And I feel like the office knocked it out of the park last season. Just funny all the time. There are also like 15 other shows I cant wait to watch, but those are 3 i'm really looking forward too.

5. Will the MTV challenge be awesome as usual? -- Tina, Hoboken

Yes. I saw some sites with cast and there are a lot of people from recent challenges & RW cancun/dc.
This show just gets more and more ridiculous each season. Hopefully there are no gimicks and they just battle it out. I would love to see some Jersey Shore people on it one of these years. Just make it an MTV challenge and people from any mtv show can be on it.

6. When will someone die on a reality show? --Eric, Clark NJ

Quite frankly I'm shocked it has not happened yet. My guess would have to be Biggest Loser. I thought it was gonna happen a few seasons ago when an old man passed out on one of the 1st days. Those people are just not used to that type of activity. Its not a gradual process yet. They work out harder on day 1 than most people who are in decent shape work out. we've seen things happen on Survivor where people are removed and even a guy got thrown off a ledge on Real World D.C. The better question is, will the incident be the end of that TV show?

7. What are your feelings on this season of Jersey Shore? ---Sal-,Pt Pleasant

Pure enjoyment. This season has exceeded my wildest expectations. The episode with Uncle Nino was hysterical. An older man speaking jibberish and laughing....you cannot make that kind of stuff up. I thought this season was gonna flop, i could not have been any more wrong. Now the "Sich" is on DWTS, yes I am taping it just to watch him and the Hasselhoff of course.

8. How bad was the Bachelor Pad? --Ali, San Fancisco

How can a show with such promise turn out so bad. The answer is ABC. All reality shows should be on HBO, Cinemax or Showtime. There had to be so much they could not show. A bunch of single people living in a mansion with booze. It would have been 1000 times more entertaining. This show can be summed up best by my wife. During the finale she stated, "this is the gayest ending to the gayest show this summer"

Thursday, September 16, 2010

My diamond shoes are too tight.

I recognize that, Rob and I have not shared our opinions on:

-> The Bachelor Pad- Gia’s strategic mistake is evidence enough of why I should quit my gig and become a professional reality show contestant coach…

-> Jersey Shore- The fact that The Situation makes $5 million a year between the show, appearance fees, and endorsements!

-> The start of the NFL season- I have 100 contradictory opinions about the NFC east.

Or dozens of other blog-worthy topics.

Unfortunately none of those subjects will be addressed today. Instead I’ll complain about a frivolous topic .

I have a cleaning lady, and what once may have been a minor luxury, or expense-able laziness has morphed into an absolute essential. Back in my Richmond days, my roommate Goette and I made the call to Molly Maid and were ecstatic about never having to do the serious clean. “People who say money can’t buy happiness, have never had a maid,” is one of my more favorite Goette quotes. And it’s true. Not having to do boring household chores makes people happy.

Anyhow, flash-forward to my current situation. Lisa and I live busy lives and the onset of her pregnancy and the subsequent birth of our son prompted us to get a cleaning lady.

(And by the way, I do recognize the misogyny of the fact that we only got the cleaning lady once we hit the point where the balance of cleaning would shift more to my side than Lisa’s side. I only bucked up for cleaning lady once my whacko-wife decided that I would have to clean the floors since being with child meant she could not be within a country mile of a chemical. In my defense, it is worth noting that this decision was not made 100% out of my personal desire to avoid housework. It was also driven by the fact that I have no interest in trying to clean to Lisa’s crazy standards. Every one of our wedding vendors openly hated my wife, not cuz she is a bad person, but because she has exceedingly high standards. Hence in order to protect my marriage I chose not to meet Lisa’s standards and simply outsource the problem.)

That said, I can say that after 7 months of not having to once clean a toilet, there is no way I can go back. The very idea of spending part of my free time scrubbing a bathtub is so far from the realm of possibility it is hilarious. To add to that; Lisa is overjoyed, because the woman we have cleaning our house does a great job and seems to put up with Lisa’s craziness.

So the only problem is that I’m pretty sure the cleaning lady is fucking with me.

Yeah that’s right. She is fucking with me. She has decided that there is just something about me that rubs her the wrong way and she is going to use her time in the house to mess around with me. And I know this because she has managed to hone in on only the things that effect me while managing to keep straight Lisa’s 25 itemized lists of whack-job requests. A few pieces of evidence.

Exhibit A: The case of the bathroom floor mats.

We have a two bathroom condo, and for some reason the shower in the master bath is set to low to work for my freakish height. No big deal, I use the other bathroom and it actually makes mornings more convenient. Of course, somehow the cleaning lady deduced that the hallway bathroom was a “Mike-Only” zone and was an ideal target for her hijinks!

So here is the thing, it’s a simple straightforward bathroom. Sink, toilet, tub. There are three corresponding bath mats. I leave the mat for the bath tub hanging over the shower, which really leaves two rugs with two places to go – in front of the sink and in front of the toilet. I’m not sure how it is possible to mix this up, yet every single time she puts them back in some new combination, pattern, or formation. Seriously. Every time she mixes it up, and never does she put it back the way we originally had it. I pointed this out to Lisa , and she can confirm this bizarre unspoken disagreement. I can imagine the cleaning lady looking at my logical arrangement of bathmats and thinking, “I know every time for the past 7 months he has preferred this formation, but I really think I can do better.” Or maybe she is thinking, “Screw that guy, lets see how he likes this.”

What puzzles me most is that it actually takes effort to put the bathmats in a different order. It’s easier to clean underneath them, and put them right back in the same spot. But sure enough, yesterday I came home from work and was greeted by one bathmat stretched diagonal across the room and the other one tucked into a corner.

Now I’m sure you are thinking that I am a bit obsessed and overly concerned about the arrangement of my bathmats. And are equally convinced that this perfectly nice cleaning lady is not even remotely thinking about screwing with me and this whole thing is in my head. And I might think you were correct, if the evidence had not begun to increase.

Exhibit B: The case of the kitchen knives.

I like to cook, and in fact am pretty good at it. So much so, that I do 70 plus percent of the cooking in the house. That of course makes the kitchen and the organization of the countless array of kitchen doodads, tools, and paraphernalia my domain. Of course somehow, our fiendish cleaning lady snuffed this factoid out and decided to hit me where it hurts.

As always it started very innocently. I opened the cabinet with the plates and found them all neatly stacked with one wine glass perched atop the pile. When I asked my wife what was going on, she replied that the cleaning lady had been nice enough to empty the dishwasher. I thought it odd that the same woman who dusted the huge shelf of hanging wine glasses over the bar, couldn’t figure out “hey this is where they keep wine glasses.” But I let it go.

Then came the knives. After a day of not being able to locate our very large and very sharp chef’s knife, I was starting to get annoyed. It wasn’t in the dishwasher, nor was it in the prominently displayed knife block. Lisa mentioned my nemesis had been by recently, and I began to have an inkling of what she might have been up too. Sure enough hidden in the classic kitchen junk drawer was my chef’s knife just waiting for an ill-paced hand to land on its blade. Yup this was getting personal. No longer was the cleaning lady content with annoyance, now she was out for blood.

Exhibit C: The patio furniture.

This is where she got creative. In fact if she wasn’t my sworn enemy, this might be where I would give our cleaning lady a nod of credit. If this were a Hollywood movie this incident would be the scene where our hero (me) looks at the audaciousness of the crime perpetuated by our villain (the cleaning lady) and has that slight grin showing that there is slight admiration at the audacity of the crime.

What happened you ask? Well as always it started out simply. Lisa asked the cleaning lady to spend some extra attention on our patio and give it a quick clean. Of course my nemesis took one look at the Patio and realized it was an ideal area for her greatest caper yet. Having infiltrated my life she must have realized that I live a very urban lifestyle- Live in a city, take mass transport to work, work in a concrete jungle… One of the few areas I have of outdoor space is our little patio. Hence, Lisa and I in some wild decorating plan have the large patio chairs facing away from the building looking out toward the backyard. Our cleaning lady thought this was just plain wrong and went to the effort of re-organizing the furniture and lifting the very heavy patio furniture so that they faced directly into the brick wall of our building. It really had to be seen to be believed. Lisa thought it was so funny that she left it that way so I could see it when I got home from work.

At this point I am prepared for anything she might do to me. Every other week I come home prepared to be shocked by some slight bit of domestic sabotage.

Baby’s bathtub precariously perched in a place it would only fall on me- I saw it coming.

Unplugging the cable TV that is hidden in our bedroom closet- a minor setback but I was able to recover.

That said, let this post stand as a warning. If I ever go missing please place my cleaning lady at the top of the suspect list.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Continued Insults of Anonymous People

19 great photos require 19 amusing responses from yours truly. I must say, I so enjoyed Rob’s post, that I almost took credit for it myself. I was hoping we might be able to deliver one or two amusing non-tv related thoughts and here I found that Dorsett set me up with almost too many jokes…

I’ll try to be concise as I give one general comment, and 19 quick replies/stories/comments inspired by Rob’s photos.

General thought- I’m not sure I can come up with a more blog-worthy locale than the low-end amusement park. If you allow me to combine boardwalks and local town carnivals into the mix I could go on forever. I could take the high-minded route and make some social commentary about the reflection on family entertainment, consumption, and local culture. I could tell some personal stories such as the fact that my first date was at a local town fair or my childhood buddy Kris and I were almost ejected from Action Park for mooning the line on the Tarzan Swing. We might even be able to get some audience participation by having people vote for their favorite carnival food, tell a summer romance story, or describe the almost fight they nearly had with the kids from the “other” town. Yes the low-end amusement park is a deep deep well of stories. In fact, I’ll say if you can’t be interesting in the amusement park topic, you are not an interesting person.

That said, of all the avenues to choose from, I’m glad Dorsett chose immature anonymous mockery for our blog. Without further ado here are 19 comments to his previous photo post. (To avoid scrolling I to his original post, I kept the photos in.)

1. I wish I could be dismissive about bad-cheesy t-shirts. Hell I wish I could even write them off as a youthful indiscretion I was once guilty of. But Lisa, myself, and my 10 week old son are often found in matching “Team Cole” jerseys.
On the topic of dressing my kid up in funny shirts… My college buddies and I are getting together this fall. I have offered my son up as wingman for the one single guy nicknamed Turkey. Let me know what you think of the following shirts for my son:
- Have you met my friend Turkey?
- If you think I’m cute, you should meet my buddy Turkey.
- My daddy’s friend wants to meet you.
I think these are a good idea.

2. The fact that your Fidel Castro joke would have worked for the last 50 years is absurd. What’s more absurd is not only is he still alive, but he is rocking the same look for that whole time.

3.Our buddy Ryan has a long running joke about Andy Reid coach of the Philadelphia Eagle. Every day Ryan imagines that Coach Reid looks at himself in the mirror and says, “Hmmm, do 300 pound red haired guys look better with a mustache or without?... With. Definitely with!”

I originally thought this guy might have had a similar thought process and then I realized it was not the case. He has thrown in the towel on aesthetics and is 100% function over appearance. His shirt and pose represent the apex of his decision making. I’ll just make the assumption that given this summer has been brutally hot in the north east this guy was preparing for a hot day. Given that assumption, our buddy here chose an outfit that 1) reflected rather than absorbed heat, 2) removed those pesky sleeves allowing for cooler armpits, and 3) was distracting enough to draw attention away from the fact that Stone Cold Steve Austin has obviously let himself go.

4. The only thing better than camouflage is neon camouflage. Can we photoshop this guy and fat Steve Austin together?

5. A girl we went to high school with was on the wrestling team. Even writing that down it feels so generic after-school-special it makes me angry.

6. This is the exact opposite of the “hot-girl tattoo.” Imagine she was going for the understated butterfly on the shoulder thing and her tattoo artists just had bad vision perspective.

7. Interesting that you highlight this as an example of worst job ever since it is remarkably similar to the worst job I ever had. In the summers before basketball camp started I had a series of bad jobs that I would work for a month before working at camp. One year I worked at Party City. Do you have any idea how many balloons you have to fill up when you work at a Party City on a Saturday? It was the perfect combination of tedious and frustrating.

8. Again our green shirted friend thought about function over aesthetics. He chose a shirt that while painful on the eyes was easy to pick out across the crowded amusement park. Either that or his wife and he were dressing as their favorite flavors of Italian ice.

9. Is this a guy or a girl? How do you get a girl with that shirt, that hair, and that weight? No idea what the girl in the green looks like, but still…

10. I’m losing it too… So many jokes, hard to pick one. This guy is far and away my favorite.

11. If this guy ever got in shape there is a 95% chance his preferred mode of exercise would be mall waking.

12. My mother wears a fanny pack when she goes to Europe. She read somewhere that she should wear a traveler’s money belt to keep things safe. Of course, my mother’s wallet is roughly the size of a Big Mac, so she had to get a fanny pack rather than a nice discreet money belt in order to fit said wallet.
Why does she need her entire wallet in Europe you ask? Well I’m sure she feels everything is highly useful while wandering around Europe. I once inspected her wallet and found a library card from Montclair State College. Lets ignore the fact that my mother got her masters at Montclair 20+ years ago, and that it is now a University and no longer college, and just all agree that they do not have a branch in Rome.

13. I went college In Richmond where there were very few Asians. So much so that my buddy Kai was once introduced by a southern sorority girl as, “This is Kai, he’s half Japanese.”

14. I have no idea what iCarly is and more so I’m so excited to have a son which gives me a few years before I have to be indoctrinated into the world of pink-kid crap. That said I looked her up and it seems like the poor man’s Hannah Montana. On the topic of bad singing, girl-related sitcoms I feel like this whole trend is a combo of Punky Brewster and American Idol. I’m pretty sure that is a bad thing, unless each of these girls ends up as hot as Soleil Moon Frye

15. You are correct Rob. Nothing funny here at all.

16. I don’t have a Morgan Freeman joke or comment, however, I will use this opportunity to transition to another black actor- Lawrence Fishburne and his porn star daughter.

For those not in the know apparently Lawrence Fishburne’s daughter- Montana Fishburne, has decided to explore her sexuality by becoming a porn star. Seriously? Couldn’t you explore your sexuality without the cameras on? Anyhow three quick comments about this…
1) Thank god I don’t have a daughter. If “Furious” Styles can’t keep his daughter on the straight and narrow, then what hope do the rest of us have.
2) If her next porn movie is not a spoof on the matrix with some sort of overdone slow motion scene, I lose all faith in the adult entertainment field.
3) The only positive note for Lawrence- being Curtis the Cowboy on PeeWee’s Playhouse is no longer the most shameful moment of his life.

17. Have to love that you managed to put camouflage, neon green, and fanny packs all in the same picture.

18. I hate it when I feel the need to be a know-it-all; but I would bet that the reason for the ice cream curfew is that the soft-serve ice cream machines are a pain in the ass to clean. (I have had multiple friends work in the ice-cream serving field and have heard all sorts of horror stories.) Anyhow I can picture, this fine establishment wanting to avoid overtime, hence they have the snack food workers start cleaning up the ice cream machine early in order to speed up the shut-down process.
That said I do think its worth noting that they felt the need to highlight all of the ice-cream related products individually. Almost as if a person would see a sign saying “No ice cream” and then think they could slide an ice cream sundae under the radar.

19. So this lovely girl obviously went on a water ride and had the misfortune of some odd drying marks. This reminds me of a great story featuring my friend Meg.

About a year ago, Meg, my wife, and I all attended a wedding together. Because she was attending alone, Meg ended up sharing a room with Lisa and I. Now Meg is good looking girl and naturally might attract a bit of attention from many of the single guys at the wedding. Fast forward to the late night drinking after the reception. We are crowded in some hotel room at god knows what hour, and Meg wanders in and gets quite a bit of attention, but not in the good way. She is wearing her dress but has this horrific ring of sweat stretching across her back from armpit to armpit. More than one guy takes note and while Meg is my friend I don’t even know how I can defend her and her apparent back sweating issue. Anyhow during the hung over breakfast the next morning Meg tells us of her adventure then night before. How she stripped down out of her dress and went down the hotel water slide in only her bra and panties. Suddenly the mysterious sweat mark made sense, it was where her wet bra was touching her dress. I then of course felt bad for those single guys. They thought they were avoiding the sweaty girl when really they were passing on the “I’m drunk enough to be taking my clothes of in mixed company" girl.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Beat this Caption

So I gathered the family last week for a trip to meet my sister in law and her kids in a central Pennsylvania amusement park called Knoebles. Let me try to best describe it to you. Picture a layout like 6 Flags, big sprawling area, without the intense super-coasters. Now there is no entrance fee. You heard me, no general admission fee. You pay for the rides a-la the boardwalk down the shore. Buy a book of little tickets and pay like 3-5 tickets for a ride. So you could basically go and hang out. You don't even have to pay to park. You typical boardwalk/amusement food as well. Good place for kids. Anyhow....being in central PA the cliental is a little more rural and I started noticing a bunch of funny looking people wearing funny looking things. So I decided to start taking pictures of these people. Some were trickier than others to get on film, but I did my best. The following are pictures from the day with captions I thought of while taking them. Kind of like a Leno type thing, even though I do not like Leno. I did not make fun of anyone with a disability of in a motor scooter( I have my limits). I will number them so if you have something funnier you can add a comment about it.

1. This is the photo that started it off. All I could think was "this is the shirt you picked out from your vacation?" or "someone bought you this crappy shirt and you actually wore it in public". I can picture the cheesy t-shirt shop on the boardwalk where it was purchased. Exactly like the one from Jersey Shore last season. (Dam, I thought I could do a blog without mentioning TV).