Ode to the Dumb

Hey there ass clown
You can stop talking now
You are so dumb
Shut your face
You open your mouth again
I’ll shove in so many forks
Didn’t see that coming
You waste of space
Everything about you sucks
Even your clothes scream idiot
You need a time out in a time out
Leader of the brain-dead race
Ahhh, you better not breed
Only gets ankle deep in your gene pool
Mouth breather with short words
Scumbag with no social grace

I’ve had better talks with the porcelain
After getting food poisoning
What do you have to say
Nevermind I don’t care to know
Do you look in the mirror
And get mad seeing that moron everyday

Oh there are so many dumb-dumb-dumbs
There’s nowhere to hide
Zombie infection of the brain
Turning the world into a land of waste
Don’t think for yourself
Just flip through the pretty pictures
Grunt and clap if you understand
Time to create, here’s some paste
Remaking shows for simpletons
Take off your shoes to count
Faking your smarts at dinner
Forsake individuality in your haste
Slow it down and sound it out
Did I just insult you
Just want to bop you in the mouth
And ask how my fist tastes

This is going nowhere
Keep using words you don’t understand
Stop wasting that oxygen you keep breathing
Some day you’ll stand in front of God
But he will step back
Step back and say, what was I thinking

Baseball Schedule – Mustangs 40+

St Louis Blues (Playoff) Hockey

Good morning. Monday morning by the sun dial located on the rooftop of a tall building in the vicinity. It is late April or as St Louis Blues fans commonly know it, the beginning of the hockey off-season.

Too soon?

The Chicago Cubs of hockey, I mean the St Louis Blues have once again bowed out of the National Hockey League playoffs in the first round amid expectations of a long playoff run if not actually capturing Lord Stanley’s championship trophy cup. This year was as flabbergasting as last year if not more so. Given that I am a casual hockey fan (thanks to Iron Mike Keanan – JERKFACE) but my girlfriend is a diehard Blues fan, my good-natured ribbing about the early games of the series and pending implosion were not well received. Over the course of this hockey season I did not see much game action (I did attend one game with my girlfriend as I bought her tickets to a game for Christmas) but did listen to quite a bit of sports talk radio and checked out the box scores frequently anticipating that at long last this might actually be the Blues year based on the consistent success before the Shattenkirk injury.

OK let me back up to last year. The Blues were also pretty formidable and had a pretty solid system and goalie tandem in place (Elliott and Halak). Then front office got the brilliant idea to swap out Halak, who was very comfortable in the system and quite effective, for ‘Superstar’ Ryan Miller from Buffalo. Miller came to St Louis after playing in  a helter-skelter system and was used to seeing twice the amount of shots and ultimately flopped in his lone playoff series with the Blues (Note: The Blues organization gave up multiple draft picks and a prospect for essentially a few month rental as Miller left via free agency to sign with Vancouver). This year the organization again meddled with the on-ice talent/chemistry that had gelled to try to add the ‘missing pieces’.

If you do not study your history, you are doomed to repeat it. To the St Louis Blues front office – see the Cliff Ronning trade. See the Ryan Miller trade. See the aborted TJ Oshie trade which may have actually had the desired effect. The kid (Oshie) is great in the shootout format (which does not occur in the playoffs) but he gets lost in the shuffle in the playoffs as he gets regularly manhandled. Finesse players better be super fast and elusive in the post season or they get neutralized every night.

As a sidebar on the series, some people will say Jake Allen lost the series for the Blues. He did not. Did he lose game six for them? Probably. Two very soft goals in facing only 13 shots in a critical elimination game. Mega deflating. He faced 125 shots in the six game series – allowing 12 goals. His save percentage was .904 – not great but through the first four games he gave up 2 goals, 1 goal, 2 goals and 1 goal while facing 93 shots (The Minnesota Wild did net 3 empty net goals while Allen was pulled for an extra attacker at the end of the games one and three) – alternating losses and wins. The real culprit here is the Blues non-existent offense outside of Vladimir Tarasenko who had six goals by himself (the team scored 14 total goals). Take away games two and four where the Blues tallied 4 and 6 respectively in their two wins, the offense was anemic scoring 2, 0, 1 and 1 in their losses. Hard to put the albatross on Allen when your team isn’t scoring.

Another sidebar note, I really liked Halak as the Blues primary goalie last year even though he split time with Brian Elliott. He had a great nickname: The Halakness Monster. Pretty cool huh? So let me compare and contrast Halak’s playoff run through six games so far in 2015 with Allen’s (Halak’s team, the New York Islanders is still alive and heading to a decisive game 7 tonight where Halak will most likely start as he has started all six previous games for his team.)

Halak is at 3 wins and 3 losses (as of today 4-27-2015). He has allowed 1 goal (win), 4 goals (loss), 1 goal (overtime win), 2 goals (overtime loss), 5 goals (loss – pulled) and 1 goal (win). In six games, Allen faced 125 shots and allowed 12 goals. In that same span, Halak faced 189 shots and allowed 14 goals. Halak’s save percentage is .926 while seeing an average of 31.5 shots a game. As I mentioned above, Allen’s save percentage is .904 while only seeing an average of 20.8 shots per game.

The numbers are fun to play with and such. Halak has more of a burden on his shoulders to make more saves and dictate game tempo than Allen. The Blues would be perceived to be the better defensive team so Allen’s numbers should probably be a little better. I do not anticipate Halak being able to carry his team to the cup but a hot goalie is invaluable (see Jonathan Quick). Did Allen cost the Blues their playoff life? I do not think so but I do think the series may have unfolded differently with Brian Elliott – maybe better, maybe worse. The game flow changes with different a  goalie. Based on rebounds and goalie fundamentals Elliott would have made things different for sure. Perhaps, the younger Allen started feeling the pressure a bit in the last two games. The mental grind of the playoffs is not something that can easily be quantified especially in inexperienced players. Also there were dissenters in the locker room who were not happy that Allen (who got hot down the stretch) started in goal over Elliott who had initially been tabbed by coach Hitchcock “The Cock” to be the guy in the playoffs.

Just looking at the three main goalies for the Blues last year and their playoff fates this year: Halak (starting, New York – still playing for the moment), Elliott (barely played, St Louis – eliminated), Miller (started all games, Vancouver – eliminated) – it shows how desperate the St Louis Blues organization is at trying to find that magic lotto ticket to finally bring some kind of playoff success.

Meanwhile, the rabid St Louis hockey fans impatiently wait for another year…

Have a good day my friends!

Peace.

Tattoos

Hello and Tuesday greetings to you and yours gathered around the corpse of your Christmas tree if you still have a ‘live’ tree up in your living room. By the way, not at all creepy and don’t give it a second thought.

For years, I have had an open challenge to my Cleveland Indians baseball team. Awhile ago I put out into the universe a pledge: If the Indians win a World Series in my lifetime, I would get a tattoo (or I guess posthumously would work as well if someone wants to dig me up and if the preservatives are still viable – tattoo away. But since my wishes are to be cremated, the challenge would be immense). The subject matter of the tattoo has always been up for debate but as a man of my word, I would allow the artists who work in needles and flesh to permanently etch an image or two into my skin. Granted, I will probably squeal like one of those purse dogs who got their paw stepped on and maybe cry a little too.

As of the writing of this blog, my Indians are off to their annual April slump. Through 12 games they have a record of 4 wins and 8 losses including only one win in five home games so far. Essentially they brought back nearly the entire roster that fell short of the playoffs last year. The (CHEAP) front office is hoping for some rough edges to come off some of the journeymen players (Murphy, Raburn) and over paid veterans who have recently underperformed (Swisher, Bourn, Kipnis) and tweeners who have offensive upside but highly questionable defensive skills (Santana, Chisenhall). In a small sample size…the hoped turnaround has not happened but it’s only twelve games (right?).

So back to the topic of tattoos and will I ever get one? Recently I placed a deposit with a tattoo artist (Ragtime Tattoo, Matt Hodel) for some artwork to appear on my person. Due to scheduling it looks like the actual work will be done in July barring a cancellation to open up a time slot earlier. I am excited and a bit trepidacious. The trepidation stems from crossing the pain threshold of teeny, tiny needles injecting ink under the skin and how much I will whimper and be unmanly. On the creative side, I am quite excited about collaborating with Matt and having a piece that reflects my personality. Also it will be like having a picture on a textured piece of paper as my skin is white and nearly translucent. If Casper the Friendly Ghost were real, he would look at me and say, “Damn you ARE white!”

For those of you English and logic enthusiasts who have done the exercises: Svetlana has a ball; All balls are round; Svetlana’s ball is round. So you may be calling Vegas to place your bet on the Indians winning the World Series this year…hold the phone a second. I do not have a sports almanac from the future showing in black and white the Indians winning the Series. My present desire to get a tattoo is just a personal choice and in no way an endorsement of my belief in the Tribe’s 2015 chances to rule the world (they are my team regardless but I just don’t see it happening this year).

Many people I know have tattoos: some good, some less than good and some that make me question their good sense. Regardless, it’s about personal expression. Do not be worried. I will not appear one day with a Mike Tyson facial tattoo. The need to work as an office professional and other factors preclude that from happening. One of which is me being a huge wuss.

Side note: If the Indians DO win the World Series this year, I would get another tattoo to commemorate the occasion. So let’s hope for that perfect baseball storm this year.

Happy Tuesday to everyone and wish me luck in my third baseball game tonight in beautiful Sauget (Cahokia), Illinois. Go Mustangs!

Peace.

Broken Angel

Hello little angel
I saw you all by yourself
Sitting apart from everyone
With your torn and broken wings
Don’t look around
I am talking to you
Underneath your pain and distrust
You are beautiful
It’s not your fault
Some people don’t believe in angels

Can I buy you a drink
Ask you about you
I see that look in your eyes
Sounds like how those wings got broken
You are holding back
Wanting to send me away
But somewhere deep inside hope is still alive
And you let me stay
I trip over my feet and stumble
When I look up you flash that angel smile

Every compliment pulls that smile down
Until it’s gone and you look away
Those angel eyes swing back
But the light is gone
The doors are closing and train is leaving
You think my truths are lines
Hey we are just talking
Who’s face are you seeing right now
Your chin is down and you look far off
Back into that fallen angel repose

It’s getting so late and it’s dark outside
The night has flown away
What are the words you are not saying
The whole world is gone, it’s just us
You are beautiful but so sad
Waiting for me say something wrong
Your hand in my hand, my hand on your back
I could float away completely
Whatever is so broken let me fix it
Let me lift you, perfect angel

Blogging from NYC – Part II

Day two is in the books of my stay in Manhattan. This day had less activities due to the fact I had to go into the New York office and meet my sales team that I have worked with for the last five years but never met (all phone or email interactions). Meeting everyone in the office whom I basically deal with on a daily basis was fun and enlightening. Some of the people I met were different than my expectations. Some were taller, some were quieter, some were just not what I pictured in my head altogether with. That is the great thing about meeting people. Global businesses that deal with internal customers (aka other employees from other locations) don’t realize the synergies that exist when people meet and put a face and personality with a name.

In meeting the sales team and seeing their environment it drastically changes my mental approach for reaching out to these people. For the most part, I deal with a group of people that sit either right next to one another or are within about 50 feet of one another. So if I reach out to someone who isn’t there I have an idea of who else might be able to assist me. Also if I am having a conflict with one of them and an email exchange gets sticky or heated it could flow over into the next cube if they verbally share some choice words on something I responded with and thus damage a secondary relationship. Fascinating stuff. I could go into more depth on the assistance this provides me when I get back to my desk in the St Louis office but my job is dreadfully boring to the common person. Just know I reach out to customer’s of my company to ask for payment on invoices using email, phone and fax primarily.

So my day from inception on day two consisted of waking up, showering, getting dressed, having breakfast at the hotel (yummy Belgian waffle with powdered sugar and strawberries), catching a cab in the drizzle, hurking our way along the mile plus route to the office, arriving early, getting situated, meeting our peers, checking emails, having lunch at the Belgian Beer Cafe, coming back to work, attending to some issues with the sales team, my boss prepping for her side trip to a client in New Jersey, and finally leaving the office after 4pm.

The weather was nice so we walked the mile-plus back to the hotel, cleaned up and went back out for shopping and dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant called Daniela Trattoria – after the appetizer of stuffed mushrooms – I had a pasta and clam dinner that was supposed to be white sauce but was red instead and my boss had some linguini. Her choice was amusing since she was trying to limit her carb in-take to try to keep on her eating regimen – no carbs in an Italian restaurant! lol Anyway, before and after we canvassed the five or so blocks around the hotel (right at the corner of Times Square) for her shopping needs. While tagging along for the shopping experience I found a few things for myself and after a short text conversation with my girlfriend, purchased a few things for her little man back home as well. My boss needed to find several t-shirts and hats and other various souvenirs for her family. By the time we found all her checklist items it was late and he were tired from all the walking and decided to head back to the hotel and call it a night.

All-in-all, probably the most walking in a two day period I have done in my entire life. So glad I wore comfortable shoes to the office and also for the later shopping. All this time as we walked around we were constantly surrounded by hundreds of people flowing like water over a rock, diverging left, right and zigzagged. Periodically horns blare, ginormous TV screens bigger than movie theater screens back home scroll all sorts of advertisements including one for the game Mortal Kombat X – coming to PS4 (and PS3 in June 2015). Elmo and his crew were working Times Square. Street vendors were making deals – he said I will give you these two things for $40. I said I don’t have $40. He said OK I’ll give it to you for $35. I said I only have $28. He said I’ll take it. Pleasure doing business with you sir.

Being a huge homebody I generally get very antsy on trips. I like the experience but get homesick quickly and miss my loved ones. So halfway through the trip I am Jonesing a bit to get back but also would like to be here with them to experience it. Because it is more fun to experience something with someone you care about but maybe that’s just my opinion. If it is, it is.

Tomorrow (Wednesday – day three) I shall try to ride the subway (Eat Fresh! No not that one.). Wish me luck…and if I don’t not make it back to blog anymore,  thank you for reading up to this point! 🙂

Also a shout out to the people from Thailand and in the UK who have recently started following in greater numbers. Thank you and tell a friend! Pip Pip Cheer-o!

Peace and Happy Hump Day no matter what ocean is on your left.

Blogging from NYC – Part I

Hello and greetings from the Big Apple, New York City, New York. The home of Lady Liberty and some of the craziest people I have ever encountered.

This is my first trip to Manhattan and the cab rides alone have kept it interesting. If you tighten your abs every time the cab lurches as the cabbie jams on the brakes (because people just blindly walk wherever they want, whenever they want) you will get a good warm and fuzzy in that area even on a short jaunt. Within an hour of leaving La Guardia airport and arriving at the hotel, we (I’m on the trip with my boss) encountered four partially naked females painted patriotically – perhaps promoting the gentlemen’s club down the way. Granted they had on shoes, thongs and body paint but that was it. Frolicking amidst these ‘ladies’ were beloved Sesame Street characters to go along with a (creepy) Lady Liberty on stilts, flanked by Woody from the Toy Story franchise and the web slinger himself (Note: On the news in morning we saw Spiderman was later subdued and arrested for something). Strange environment to say the least.

After checking into the hotel, my boss and I made our way around the city, tasted some local fare at Juniors and bought some souvenirs. Everywhere you see a bike rack with bikes locked to them – the chains and locks are huge – like the Incredible Hulk could not break them. Wow. Between the sights from inside the cab and the things we saw on foot – amazing. Amazing in good and bad ways. The tributes at Ground Zero were a somber reminder of what used to be there. Two building sized squares recessed into the ground featuring waterfalls on all four sides – the entire length of the squares. All that water flowing down 30 feet and then pooling into the center square which drops below sight level. Seeing the square tribute pools gave me chills. Seeing the names of all the people taken from that day in 2001 was beyond sad (Flashback: I was sitting at my desk at GMAC Insurance in Earth City, Missouri on a call with an auto insurance customer updating their policy for the purchase of a new Chevy truck when someone said something about an attack on the twin towers was on a news website). The air felt heavy and the sun seemed dimmer there amongst the people taking selfies. I didn’t know anyone who perished in the attacks but nonetheless it felt like a place of sobering reality. Just across the street from one of the pools is an etched depiction on a wall of the scene on that day with emergency personnel trying to save the day. It was beautiful and difficult to look upon.

The more I traveled around the city the more depressed I became. Anyone who knows me knows I am a cat person. I think they have their own quirky, fun personalities and I miss having cats every day. So I nearly lost my mind when we came upon a homeless man laying amid his belongings in the middle of a sidewalk. Laying on his back with his obligatory sign requesting assistance, he was craddling a black and white cat on his left hip and another black and white cat stretched out and sleeping on his right leg. I couldn’t bear to look at them for more than a few seconds. But that is just an example of the sadness to be sampled.

Moving on. Transportation methods are walking, riding a bike, horseback (cops), horse drawn carriage, bus, subway, taxi, personal car, riding piggyback on someone’s shoulders and who knows what else. You can probably rent a helicopter somewhere if you look hard enough, probably also a zip-line from Jay-Z’s penthouse to all the fine clubs too I imagine. The sheer foot traffic going every which direction is astounding at all hours of the day. Being from St Louis the comparison is laughable. In St Louis in the downtown area, foot traffic is minimal after dark (after working business hours) unless there are sporting events or concerts, etc.  I could go on and on about the antics of the cab rides and the flow of pedestrians in a few thousand words by themselves because their actions go hand in hand. Calling people in New York on foot pedestrians is like calling Mariah Carey a singer. I will crown them NYdestrians. People walk anywhere they want regardless if there is a 10-ton bus bearing down on the cross street or not. These NYdestrians walk with their heads down, looking straight ahead  focused on their destination or their cell phones (yes some plural looking at multiple cell phones); traffic lights and motorists (and bicylists) be damned. And the cab drivers, all driving their hybrids for fuel efficiency, hit max acceleration only to abruptly apply the brakes for the duration of the ride. Weaving in and out of traffic lanes with nary a blinker to be implemented. Because who has time for a blinker when you just performed three different lane changes within 5 seconds and now the cab is at rest in a diagonal position waiting for a man with headphones on, bopping his way through the intersection without even a glance to see if the taxi is going to crash into his body and drag him for 30 feet. Again, being from St Louis, this type of driving performance would be at the third stage of road rage and the man wandering into the intersection would’ve been vehicularly manslaughtered. Incredible. And this happens a zillion times over the course of a day. At most the cabbie will give a cursory bonk on his car horn that is completely ignored. Yet the sound of car horns is prevalent throughtout the entire city. I wish I had a quarter for every time someone in the Manhattan area hit their car horn just in one normal day. I would probably never have to work again.

On day one I saw La Guardia airport, my hotel The New York Marriott Marquis, a restaurant called Juniors, the M&M store, the 9/11 Tribute Center, Pier A Harbor House (bar) and Heartland Brewery (for dinner).

Peace my friends. There’s no place like home.

AMA Amazing Lawn Care

Today Blog is brought to you by : AMA Amazing Lawn Care

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Today I welcome Andy from AMA Amazing Lawn Care to tell us a little about his fantastic lawn and handyman services available to the public.

Andy: Thanks for having me. Which way should I face for the camera?

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Easy there, this is a dialogue piece but I do appreciate you spending the extra green backs to have your hair done up in the fauxhawk for me. So Andy, there are probably literally a million lawn services world wide, what sets your service apart?

Andy: First off, we aren’t global. We mainly cater to the greater St Louis Metro area. We offer primarily lawn maintenance services such as mowing, mulching, landscaping, edging, tree trimming, leaf removal, patio construction and irrigation installation to name a few.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Kind of limiting your potential customer base by limiting yourself to just the St Louis Area aren’t you?

Andy: Well…It’s just me and a couple of buddies from high school so we have limited resources when it comes to manpower.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: That is an impressive list of services you offer.

Andy: Thanks. We offer more and are open to other services that fall into that type of work that the everyday person may not have time for or just are uncomfortable with doing themselves.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Do you film your work while on the homeowner’s property? Or sing while you work?

Andy: Not usually. We may take a picture or two with our cell phones if something looks like it might present well for a brochure or our Facebook page.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: So have you had to kill any animals while in the midst of a job? You know like a cobra or a rabid raccoon?

Andy: (laughs) Um, no. Just maybe swatted some mosquitoes or horse flies from time to time.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: So you mentioned your team. What are their names and how long have each of you been doing this type of work?

Andy: Well, I, myself have been doing handyman and lawn care for over 3 years. My buddy Andrew has been helping me on various projects for the last 6 or 7 months and Montee helps on the larger jobs – mostly on weekends as he works full time at a local chemical production company.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: If you would’ve called yourself The Amazing Lawn Care – then you could’ve made the acronym TALC. You know like SCUBA is an acronym for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus?

Andy: Sure I guess. We just wanted something that sounded impressive and professional like our work.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: So do you bring a Porta-Potty with you to the job site or can homeowners be expected to let you in all sweaty and covered in dirt to unload in their bathroom or do you and your crew just relieve yourselves in public?

Andy: Um. Typically we do not bring a Porta-Potty to the site because of limited appropriate space to set one up. We usually communicate in advance to the homeowner in the event we need to use an in-house restroom and if that is OK with them. If not we would leave the job site and find a local restaurant or gas station to utilize.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: If the homeowner agrees to let you use their bathroom, do you have sign a waiver to pee sitting down?

Andy: No?

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Do you pee sitting down?

Andy: No?!

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: So owner beware and sanitize after your crew hoses down the toilet seat like an open trough at the local bar?

Andy: (blank stare)

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: So Andy, what is the most ‘amazing’ job you and you crew have accomplished?

Andy: Well, we changed over an old flower garden to a walk out seating area patio with arched flower trellises and also made a circular  bench on three sides of a stone fire pit. Took three days and the pictures of the before and after are up on our Instagram site.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Sweet. Do you put up Christmas lights?

Andy: In the off-season we do branch out into non-lawn care jobs. Christmas or holiday lights are one such service we have provided.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: What about in July?

Andy: Putting up Christmas lights in July?

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Yes?

Andy: Not so far.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Interesting. So dish a little dirt here. Have any of your customers ever gotten belligerently drunk with you or your crew? Or yelled racial slurs at you to try to get out of paying? Or good-naturedly shot at you with a BB gun while singing the early career songs of Madonna?

Andy: Are you serious right now?

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Avoiding the questions I see.

Andy: No.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: I am sensing you getting a bit tense so let’s lighten things up a bit. Which Transformers movie is your favorite and which franchise do you enjoy more: Transformers or Jurassic Park? Jurassic World is coming out the week before my birthday in case you were not aware.

Andy: I think we are done here.

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: I would like to thank Andy for joining us today. I will decline to shake his hand because I’m not sure if he washed his hands after using the restroom here earlier.

Andy: (throws down microphone clip and walks off)

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Remember if you need Amazing Lawn Care don’t do it yourself call or find them on Facebook.

Andy: (yells explicative)

Alfredo Pedro Chuckles: Oh and apparently they also remove fecal matter too! Good day readers!

<end advertisement>

And the clear winner is…Luke Bryan

A co-worker held up a Luke Bryan CD and another artist’s CD. She then said “Which one?” I pointed to the Luke Bryan CD and said “Luke Bryan for sure.” She said “you sure?” I said, “Certainly without a doubt. Now how do we make it look like an accident?”

This is where things went south and I became disappointed. Apparently there was some miscommunication. She was asking which CD should she listen to this morning and I took the choices as whom I would rather push off a cliff with jagged rock formations far below.

I’m sure he’s a good boy, loves his mama
Loves Jesus and America too
I’m sure he’s a good boy, crazy ’bout Elvis
Loves horses and his boyfriend (or girlfriend) too

But when it comes to his tone deaf singing and cave man simple lyrics – ugh, I ask for mercy! He’s just the latest hacked up hairball of country music. Winning smile that the ladies swoon for and once you are 30 beers in, his singing becomes marginally unhorrible. He should be forced to spend 50 cents for every dollar he earns giving back to the people who have been afflicted by his FGL (Florida Georgia Line) style of fluff that makes the country greats like Hank Sr, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson and George Jones roll over in their graves. The more popularity that Luke garners the more Somethin Bad is about to Happen. He is probably the reason we may soon be at war with Australia. You Just Never Know.

Oh well, rant over. Happy Good Friday if that applies to you.

Peace.

P.S. As an after word, I was notified that some of the Country Greats I noted above are not in fact deceased. Huh, who knew?

Cooking with Scott

Today we are going to do a Rachel Ray styled segment. Let me put on my poofy white chef’s hat. A teal bow tie. I will put on my red Wolff’s  Softball Champion t-shirt. Gray sweat pants. Knee high white socks. All black river shoes. And finally an off-white apron with “Don’t Smack the Chef in Face” embroidered in navy blue across the belt-line.

Now that we are dressed for some serious cuisine, let’s fire up that microwave and make some super delicious pizza rolls. Spread them evenly over a paper plate or stoneware plate leaving some spacing between each. Remember to never, ever put your pizza rolls on a metal plate or tray within the microwave as you may destroy the universe or at least summon the local fire department.

Next determine the appropriate amount of time to program for your microwave to cook. I usually add about 30-60 seconds to the recommendation because I prefer my pizza rolls to be crunchier and less mushy / sweaty. If you have some pixie dust or fairy dust, go ahead and sprinkle that on the pizza rolls, otherwise they are ready to get popped into ye ole microwave. Also note, it is not necessary to preheat your microwave. Doing so might damage the microwave and once again require the skills of fire extinguishing professionals within your home.

Some microwaves rotate your food so you can check out the different angles in case you would like to paint or sketch a picture of your food later. Otherwise, it may just sit in the middle of the unit doing nothing but sizzling and perhaps exploding periodically sending little chunks to stick against the sides and top of your microwave that will harden into unidentifiable debris later. A paper towel can be draped over the plate to minimize the exploding shrapnel.

Some microwaves ding or have a notification sound or sounds once the cooking time expires. Once you hear this, remove your pizza rolls. They should be extremely hot and placing them inside your mouth cavity is discouraged for several minutes unless you like to exfoliate the roof of your mouth and taste your own blood.

If the pizza rolls are cooled enough to serve and eat, you can decorate  or garnish them with some sort of vegetable to give the illusion of a healthy snack. Makes a perfect snack for impromptu parties and other gatherings where beer and heart burn meds may be served.

Make it a great diddly day!

Peace.

Ain’t That Life

Some good days, some bad days
But ain’t that life
Smile so easy one day and it’s so easy
Laughed so hard that it turned to tears
Then I blinked and everything changed
Cried so much I had to laugh
Never hurt so much without a scratch
So goddamn funny that everything is wrong

Good times slipping through my hands
But ain’t that life
Tripping you up and knocking you down
On my knees, might as well pray
But there’s no one listening anyway
Not that I’ve got anything to say
I’m on my feet again, unsteady and unsure
And you’re already tired of my song

All the bad things haunt my brain
But ain’t that life
Back at 10 years old, getting beat down
When does that stop playing on the screen
Just nail up a big smile for everyone
No nothing is wrong, no nothing is going on
How do you run away from yourself
Haven’t figured that out, so I pretend to be strong

Today is caught on the hook of yesterday
But ain’t that life
Haven’t seen me in years but you say
Hey, you haven’t changed a bit
It’s nice that you don’t know me so well
It doesn’t matter and I don’t care
Fake laugh if off, hey I’ve gotta go
Take care and forget me, see ya, so long