Monday, December 29, 2008

Travels With Dad: The Finger Story

So i've been busy enough lately that I've been slacking on putting up new posts, but as I am currently on "vacation" I'll put one up that I've been meaning to touch on.

My dad is an infamous traveller. This is not to say that he's been everywhere, but moreso that wherever he goes is sure to spawn a new, refreshing, and painfully hilarious story. Although i have a slew of these stories to tell, I will have to space them out to keep everyone's interest. I'll start small...

When I was but a young little boy, not more than 7 or 8 years of age, the family decided to take a celebratory afternoon jaunt to the local McDonalds. Upon reflection nothing but bad things have ever gone in to or out of a McDonalds, but not knowing this information at such a ripe and tender age caused me nothing but eagerness for an oncoming big mac attack. En route to the the golden arches as my brother and i sat patiently in the back seat of our not-so-spacious Honda excel, Shaughn (the aforementioned brother) decided it would be a fine time to test his childish lock-n-key theory in the form of shoving his finger through the loop of an unbuckled seat belt.

Needless to say, the "key" fit the lock perfectly, so perfect in fact that his finger became quite stuck in the seat belt. As Shaughn's anxiousness climbed and his fervorous attempts to remove his finger became increasingly futile, the hubbub in the backseat attracted the attention of my parents.

"Everything alright back there?" my mom asks.

"It's fine. Shaughn's finger is stuck thought" I reply innocently enough.

The next series of events transpired rather quickly, but it consisted of my mom trying to free my brothers finger, Shaughn becoming more anxious and starting to cry, my dad tugging vigorously at Shaughn's finger at a red light which seemed to last forever, Shaughn beginning to bawl, Dad whipping the car around and speeding angrily towards home, all climaxing of the visual image I have burned in to my mind of my father wrapping his arms around the waist of my little brother, trying to free him from his seat belt Chinese finger trap while my brother half dangled, half stretched from the inside of the car. At the time I was mortified, but now I can't help but laugh.

My mom came to the rescue in the form of liquid soap spread lightly around my brothers finger while simultaneously shooting my father a look of utter disgust. A few dabs of hand soap, a brief tug, and Shaughn was free to continue crying in his room. After Shaughn was free, we never ended up making the 2 mile trip to McDonalds.

Granted, this is one of the shorter and more tame stories I have of travels with dad so you'll have to keep checking back for new ones. Imagine how much fun I've had over the years and over thousands of miles with this guy if we can get in to this much trouble on a simple trip to McDonalds!!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Neck Beard the Pirate, Scourge of the Seven Schicks

First and foremost, I need to apologize for being so negligent with my postings. I have been busy getting back in to the swing of working, maintaining a healthy balance of quality time and annoyance between separate family members, and just general time away from a computer thus prohibiting my time for witty input. I'm truly sorry and I'll try to be more diligent in the future.

With that out of the way, I have an important issue I've been dying to talk about that I need to bring up. In the spirit of Christmas, I can't help but bask in Santa's persona. His jolly smile, his rounded belly, and that unmistakable fluffy white beard. I feel that many of Santa's features are up to interpretation, but I am unmoving in the case of having a solid, full, wintry white beard. This is why I feel it's appropriate to address those of us who cannot grow such a beard, and why we will never be Santa Clause.

I have dabbled in the land of facial hair with moderate success, but as of late I have come to enjoy the smooth finish of a freshly shaven chin. I, admittedly, cannot grow a full and lustrous beard, so I feel I should just leave it to the pros. I also refuse to start taking steroids to up my testosterone levels to the point of lumberjackedness, so I'm afraid I'm stuck with the hair I got.

However there are others who walk among who do not have the tact and etiquette that I possess. Their testosterone levels are pumping just hard enough for their balls to drop and consequently for the most modest of facial sprouts to spring forth from their face. And then, for some unknown reason, their neck follicles go in to overdrive to produce the phenomenon that is... the neck beard.

I simply despise a grody facial hair display, and although I tolerate it, I feel I have shouldered my grief for it in silence long enough. When your pubis spirals out of control from your face, and more so your neck region, do the the world a favor and TRIM IT. In fact, go get laser surgery for your whole mug because I demand satisfaction! The wiry, scraggly, scruffy attempt at manhood that you so candidly display looks awful, simply can't provide any form of comfort or warmth (or ANY positive points for that matter!), and almost assuredly smells of yesterdays meal and sweat. It's simply put: disgusting.

As science goes, I simply don't understand the physics of the neck beard! How does such an anomaly plant itself so firmly under the chins of so many innocent people?!? Myself included, why should we be doomed to a life of irritating razor burn without any hopes of ever finding a profession as a lumberjack, grizzly bear impersonator, or the fat man in the red suit himself?? We are like a common breed of flower that will never truly bloom! How sad it is to live under the guise of real men, always hiding our Achilles heel through the route of extensively good hygiene, or the alternative of the beast itself, the neck beard. I send my curses to heaven for setting this hideousness upon the earth!!!

The neck beard will continue to live on, just as the traditions of Christmas will. Therefore I will continue to despise it, just as I will continue celebrating Christmas. So in the spirit of Christmas I ask all of you to consider: while you're trimming the tree, don't forget about trimming that monster looming on your neck...

MERRY NECK BEARD CHRISTMAS URRY BODY!!!!!

Santa is my master

Every year my mom has me write my Christmas list in a letter to Santa. This is not a lie in any way, shape, or form. Until recently she did not accept the letter in email format, but instead had me seal the letter with peppermint oil and put gumdrop stamps on the envelope. Although that is essentially a lie, I would not have put it past my mother had it not been a waste of paper and/or candy.



Over the past 5 or 6 years I've started jazzing my Christmas letters up to mesh with the current times and to keep myself entertained. Although if the REAL Santa ever got a hold of these mockeries I would certainly be getting a stocking full of coal now wouldn't I, hmmmmm??? I look at these annoying, yet trendy letters jam-packed with pizazz as punishment to my parents for lying to me about where the hell all those gifts came from until I was about 13.



ANYHOW, I figured because these letters keep me so entertained year after year I would post the latest version for everyone to read. It dribbles as follows:



Dear Santa Montana,

In this increasingly pop-ee world, cast your blonde wig off for just a moment and relish in the times when you were good and grey. Cast off the cape of commercialism and stop to smell the candy canes, dag nabbit! Now breathe… focus… gentley rub that ‘bowl full of jelly’…
Now that I have your attention, it has been brought up that I need to present you with some forms of gift ideas. This is proving more difficult than I had anticipated as I already have most everything I need, so I guess I’ll delve in to things that I merely want. Some of these items are a bit outstretched, but any hands you could lend would be greatly appreciated…

World PIZZA!... world peace is over-rated, and everybody could use a slice!



A JOB. I like REI and all, but if you could just cement me in something that pays well and keeps me interested for about 35-40 hours a week I would really appreciate it. I’m hurtin, fat man.

A super cool merino wool argyle sweater from Target (
This one in the Olive color is my favorite, but I like the Fountain Color one as well. Either/both would be cheeky enough)

A classic Sega Genesis with games such as Aladdin or The Lion King
A good book
A good movie
A gift card to any number of places (REI, Chipotle, AMC, Moes Southwest Grill, Amazon, etc)
A high five
Merino Wool Socks and/or festive boxers

This is about all the ideas I can muster, and I know some of them are a longshot but it was hard enough for me to come up with ideas as it is! Really, anything you can have the elves scrimp together would be cool with me because I’m sure the economic crisis has even hit the north pole. The elves have probably had to endure benefit reductions, lost hours, and pay cuts to compensate for the flailing economy so I’m down with whatever you can sling my way. Hopefully you’ll be driving the hybrid sled this year to give the reindeer a break. Anyhow, happy holidays and see you somewhere in and around the chimney.

Your #1 Fan,
Rick

Well it's not my best work, but I refused to spend any amount of real time editing it for clarity because usually it's just moms, pops, and brohambino that read it. Don't you feel privileged to be in the circle of Christmas cheer ch-rust? Hope everyone has all their shopping done already, the days are flying off the calender and the fat man cometh any day now...

Back to the daily gREInd

I've taken the plunge in to the shallow end of the pool by starting to work again and what a righteous time I've been having! I'm back at REI trying to maintain some semblance of motivation and credibility under the guise of a new short haircut. I think I've got some people fooled but I'm still in my first week so I'm sure they'll catch on soon.



I don't plan on holding back this time though. I'm tired of trying to be an exemplary employee! Work ethic be damned, I'm in this job to slack! I plan on taking many (MANY) restroom breaks, chewing gum loudly and obnoxiously (and I DESPISE gum, but i'll take one for the team), getting sick on purpose and sneezing on random children in the store, and farting even when I don't have to (what does that mean, you ask? come to the store and find out! gwah ha ha!).



I'm still continuing to look for something full time that pays well and can capture my interest, but in the mean time I'll be the east coast's surliest and most entertaining outfitter. At this point I'm even willing to forgo my past clauses for finding a full time job of: "job cannot suck" and "must have mandatory happy hour" because my integrity is hurting far less than my wallet at this point.



So if you're feeling saucy and you want to buy some trendy, yet versatile outdoor equipment, come to your local REI where I can point you in the most positive (and coincidentally, the most expensive, no doubt) direction. See you soon!

I'm not a layer I just f#@k a lot

Now that Thanksgiving is firmly behind us, it's time to start getting in shape so we can one-up the fat man in red. He'll feel oh-so foolish when he's wedging himself down those chimneys while all of us are buff and lean in the wake of turkey day, right?

Well first things first, I've started to run. I absolutely hate it. It's cold, I get winded super easily, I cramp in places I don't wanna, and my nose leaks all the way down my face for at least the last half of the run. I cannot see why people do this for fun, but I'm sick of sitting on my ass because it's too cold to bike, so instead I've decided to try and run it off.

However within the course of this new regiment I realized something phenomenal: I love layers. Not just the staple I have adorned of hoodie, hat, wool shirt, undershirt, etc for my runs, but layers in all walks of life. I love bean dip... layered. I love onions...which contain many layers! I enjoy people... who have many layers to them! The world would be hopeless without layers, and I have a strong feeling that if there were no layers it would be an awful place to exist.

In fact it would probably be a bunch of dunces standing around on hot lava from the earths core (because that is also layered to keep us safe from the sweet, molten core!) having bland conversations and sharing 1 layer of refriend beans. I'll be damned if I'm going to have a bland conversation without those 6 additional layers!

So I send out a casual thank you to all of my friends for being multi-dimensional, and being able to break bread (or tortilla chips) in many instances of delicious, cheesy, beany, walks of life.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Post A-poo-calypto

Get it???



Here's the part about post-thanksgiving that no on really wants to talk about: the poo. After embibing somewhere between 2,000 to 4,ooo calories in a single day which consists mostly of sitting around, it's all gotta come out somehow.



I tend to hold a little ceremony. It's a huge undertaking to dispell such a load, so I don't think it's blowing it out of proportion to take some special care before you blow out your digested portions. I wake up, do some sit ups, light a vanilla scented candle, drop my pants and let gravity take over. It's really a special moment.



It might seem a bit graphic, but I haven't really even gone in to detail... and I don't really even plan to! Kids might read this, you perverts! The putrid thoughts and inevitable sense of relief you must be feeling through sake of association is all in your head, bub.



So this post-thanksgiving day, I ask for you to take a minute before you reach for that toilet handle. Take a look down at what once was, and feel no regrets as your past memories of savory food, family fun, and thanksgiving feelings spiral downward in a clockwise motion...

Bird bird bird, bird is the turd...

Happy Spanksgiving

Well it's the turkey-est of holidays and I'm trying to force out a ripe loaf and I can't help but reflect on this joyous occasion...

My uncle, my aunt, and their three nephews had to bail on coming to visit at the last second because of some unforseen events. This isn't a huge deal, aside from the fact that my mama bought a 21 lb turkey. Also, my brother has decided he's above meat again, so that leaves 21 lbs of delicious flightless bird for my mom, my dad, and myself. If you include the 30,000 sides that we also had planned out, we probably don't have to shop again for the next year. Shit, I'm praying that some sort of natural disaster hits at this point b/c we are STACKED. I'm going to be eating so much turkey that it's going to start gobbling through my veins.

The odd part about thanksgiving this year was that I seem to have it down to a science. I literally could run through the whole holiday mechanically because I know exactly what I'm going to do, exactly when and how I'm going to do it, exactly what I'm going to eat, blah-yadda- so-on... Somehow the routine never gets old though. The timelessness of this holiday exists on the fact that you can piddle around and gorge yourself guiltlessly, so long as it's with good friends and/or family and then collapse in to a pile of gluttony with no negative connotations.

It also signifies the beginning of the Christmas season, possibly one of the greatest times of every year (aside from football and anything else that sustains revelry and fragrantly scented candles). I've already busted out the, "Charlie Brown Christmas Album" and I'm contemplating going to the mall to harass the fake Santa tomorrow, all in the Spirit of the holidays.

I hope that everyone is on the same page as I am about this fantastic time of year, and I'll wrap this one up despite the fact that it's scattered and none-to-entertaining because it's time to go force some pecan pie down in to the semi-nonexistent corners of my stomach. I just wanted to pay some homage to this celebratory time of year, but I've got some good sauce to lay out there tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The BOOM BOOM Walk, or "The day I practiced to be a terrorist bomber"

One of the many reasons that inspired me to start this blog was because of my excess of free time due to lack of occupation. I am in this predicament by my own accord, but for the last 2 months I have been searching for something to bring home some bread. Well, the durn economic crisis is really nippin at muh haunches and I haven't had much luck finding work... until today.



Today I had my first day of work in several months and it isn't exactly run of the mill. I was called one of the various temp agencies I've groveled at called and asked me to fulfill a very peculiar position...



"So Rick, are you interested in being a mock-suicide bomber?"



"Excuse me?"

"Well, you kind of strap on these vests and then you walk around and this machine takes some readings. It's not very difficult and it will be more clear when you get there."



"What's the pay?"



"12 dollars an hour"



"How often could I get paid 12 dollars an hour to be suicide bomber and then be able to spend the paycheck after the fact, right? (awkward pause) Yeah, sign me up."



I arrived at Quantico base at the predetermined time to find 3 very cold looking people operating a strange looking device that was overlooking a field filled with a large triangle of cones. The cones were set apart in an isocolean manner (nerds, you totally know what that is too, don't you?!?) in increments of about 100 yards by 100 yards 20 yards.



"So what exactly are we doing today?" I asked.



"Well, we're going to put fake varieties of mock-suicide bomb vests and conceal them under your clothing. Then you're going to walk from cone to cone so the machine can get an accurate reading and detect whether or not you're strapped."



'Sounds easy enough,' I thought to myself... AND HOW! Monkeys could've done this, but then again, I doubt monkeys would've known what to do with the 40 dollars they would've made after the fact so maybe it was better off I continue to thwart the primate labor unions. We literally spent an hour and a half walking around this large, coneular triangle with a lovely variety of silicone based and shrapnel laden mock-bombs. I wasn't allowed to carry my ipod or my cell phone while we were doing the simulation because apparently those waves can disrupt the readings for the radar machine. I think it's ridiculous to pre-suppose that a suicide bomber wouldn't be bumpin some tunes before you blew himself to the heavens, but rules are rules so I had to abide. Anyhow, the walking was cold but brief, and when I had done my fair share of low-intensity, gentle impact bombing, I was free to go.



I couldn't help but wonder that if you were going to be a real suicide bomber that the training program would be a bit more rigorous, but then again I guess if they limit you to just being a walker and not a runner you'll be even fatter, thereby creating much more blubbery debris to litter the country side for your explosive cause.



I also started thinking about what it would be like to be a middle-eastern trying to peddle a jacket full of verizon phones past a check point that was equipped with one of these machines. I bet it would set that radar off and he would get lit up like a Christmas tree.



The point of this story is that our economy is dragging so low that I had to result to being a suicide bomber for 12 dollars an hour like a common hooker. A common, explosive hooker, damnit! Things better shape up soon or i'm going to have to start taking on jobs as mock torpedoes, and I don't know how long I can hold my breath anymore!



It was a typically weird day, so please, I promise not to use what I now know to blow you up, but only if you can find me a real job. Thanks friends!



Come back again if you want to get blasted

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Unmessing the muck in my bloggy mind...

So i've realized that it's been far too long since I've done anything remotely fun and/or creative so I'm starting this blog to keep myself, and perhaps others, entertained. This is immediately going against my better judgement as I despise the word, "blog" and have thereby had a deep-seeded hatred for it for sometime. Upon consultation of wikipedia, it turns out that "blog" merely stands for "web long" in the abbreviated sense, so I guess now that I understand it I can come to terms with it, embrace it, and then ravage it with all that is word-ly.




I plan on keeping this initial post a short one because I tend to ramble enough as it is. I'm 24, living at home in the classic re-nest situation, drinking somewhat excessively, job hunting in a proverbial state of sweat-pants and 11 am wake-ups, and somehow still managing to be in the prime of my life. Jealousy would normally consume a lesser person who comes across a situation such as mine, but I'm going to assume that i can pride myself on having only the highest caliber of readers.




I also think that a clotted build-up of creativity is ready to be forced from the bottleneck within my head and spewed out in a kablooey of bloggish, clanks, booms, and various other onomatopoeia. This fact coupled with my excess of free time spent searching for jobs and picking up shifts at my local outfitter giving back-country fashion advice should allow for plenty of absurd and hilarious posts.




I've lived an interesting life up to this point with no shortage of stories, but I'll let those unfold as time dictates. I hope this experiment of re-visitation to my more literary side proves to be a fun one, but in the mean time I'll just sit on my crossed fingers hoping that this overview has lubed and prepped everyone's mind for one hell of a ride through my own. If you're already feeling in over your head, you should probably stay out of mine...





Stay tuned...