A Fifty Year Old With Daddy Issues. Pathetic.

I took another small step toward becoming my father.

Now for some this might be a good thing. Perhaps your father was a genuine war hero. . . He singlehandedly rushed the point defence machine gun and RPG emplacement killing or mortally wounding all enemy within. Then he did proceed interior along the enemy trenches whereupon he engaged the enemy once again to the same result forcing them to abandon no less than 2 artillery pieces, 155mm cannon. Not wanting these weapons to ever again be used by the enemy he then did spiderwalk up the barrels, shit profusely in each then lit same with fiery piss resulting in the destruction of both weapons. Not wanting to advance too far forward of his comrades he then  dropped his BVD’s again to release the flying monkey army for air cover and waited for his unit to catch up while providing cover for other approaching units. . .

I mean a real Goddam war hero.

So it would be a good thing to be more like that. For the rest of us there are two more choices. Your father was an OK guy. Didn’t accomplish a whole lot in his life . . . I’ve done some bad, I’ve done some good. . . He was nice to strangers and children, didn’t kick dogs, never drowned a cat even though he really wanted to. He made sure his family was housed, fed, and clothed. It would be OK if you were a little more like that guy rather than the putz who sits in his underwear on his couch most days alternating between playing Call Of Duty and streaming porn for about ten hours a day. Seriously you have calluses on your fucking dick. Asshole.

Then there are those of us who would be better off being less and less like our fathers. That is not to say that our fathers were among the top ten worst people in the world. Hitler might not even get that distinction. In fact the worst human being to ever live was  a guy named George Keller from Pittsburg. Neither a single pleasant nor good thought ever passed his mind (even Gengis Khan loved his horses). See George just never had an army. Good thing that, otherwise we wouldn’t be here to have this little chat. It is also good that actually being the worst human being is also a self limiting career path. You are so awful that you cannot even attract potential minions.

So for those of us who want to be less like our fathers, as I do, we must be constantly vigilant for habits that we may have picked up unconsciously. That is where this narrative turns to fireplaces and old water heaters.

I live in a 1920 craftsman bungalow. Google it fucknut. As such there is a fireplace in the front room, the parlour we like to call it. No ordinary fireplace mind you, but a coal burning design. Unfortunately the original grate is no longer in place and even if it were the chimney is no longer suitable for use. That’s OK because I have decided to experiment with making one of those fire centerpieces with the flames coming out of a bed of glass or stone. Kinda thing you see in the overpriced bar of an overpriced hotel. Jebus, I coulda bought a bottle of really good bourbon for the price of 2 drinks. Pretty and might warm the room a bit.

I have a nice replacement grill burner I picked up recently for 5 dollars in a bargain bin to use as the diffuser. What I need is a natural gas jet fitting to supply the fuel. So I’m poking around ebay, Amazon, Lowes, looking for anything that will fit. Then It hits me; Don’t I have an old water heater burner in the basement? The one I rigged up as a boiler pot.  I bet there is a jet on that thing. A quick trip to the basement revealed the truth. Yes I did have a water heater burner in the basement complete with the jet. I then says to myself, “wow, I actually had a use for that.”

That is the moment when I recoiled in horror. “I might have a use for that” was a common phrase my father uttered to justify hanging onto the most remarkable collection of crap. It was not as bad as an episode of “Hoarders” but It was overwhelming at the end. So there it is. This is the thing I steadfastly refuse to become. I will not surround myself with piles of junk on the offhand chance that some part of it will one day be useful. Eventually the vast piles, and I do mean pile of stuff, junk, trash, that he collected overwhelmed him. He had no idea what he owned or where it was. The most frustrating development in the end was that he steadfastly refused to let anyone help him with it. He had the childish notion that nobody knew that he was so overwhelmed.

So here’s to small steps forward and giant fucking I got a case of the willies leaps back. Throw it away. Recycle it. Compost it. Reuse it. Dig a hole, drop it in, leave a big steamy heapy on top, and cover it up. For Pete’s sake though, don’t put it in an empty coffee can whilst muttering “I might have a use for that one day” under your breath.

We Still Hate You

We still hate you. 

A little lark ten years ago. 
Ten. 
Years. 
Ago. 
. 
Fuck. 

Let's get out a little turd polish and spiffy this thing up.

Well I'm for real gonna start putting some stuff up here. I don't give a rat's ass whether a single neotenous ape ever reads any of this. I do this for myself. 

Which is more valuable, a rat's ass or a tinker's damn? I don't give either.

If it's any consolation I hate myself too. Self loathing is the curse of the intelligent. Self awareness is a prerequisite.

Uh-oh... "It's turning cold again...."

Well. Yes it is. Since last time I blawged y'all I've had lots of adventures. Luckily for me, I'm still married and my wife isn't pregnant again. However I did break my collar bone playing softball (don't even ask), so now I have a "doppler radar" on demand in my shoulder. (It was "moderate" today, in case you're wondering). Yes, it still hurts, it's always gonna hurt, and are you always gonna ask? If you need a barometer reading, CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTING FIRST, then shoot me an email that I probably won't answer.

Since Pillorist and I haven't posted anything since the last time it was cold weather, I'm sure you are wondering how we managed to survive the nukular winter. We apparently fared ok.

Just.. please... if you read this... DON'T TELL US IT IS GOING TO SNOW!

If you want to talk about the weather, you might want to call a radio talk show or something. Please, never talk to your co-workers about the weather. They might be me!

You have been warned!

PS: Another warning! Sams has huge inflatable things that should not be purchased!

Las Vegas X-mas Continued

Someone please explain to me why Christmas in this country has to look like the Las Vegas strip. Granted, as I have already stated, I have never been there, but I HAVE seen pictures. I've seen some houses with light displays that any casino would be proud of. I fully understand why the fundamnnutallists are so worked up over the commercialization of Christmas; I'm an atheist and it offends ME!

For a few days just before x-mas the local newspaper has ran a piece on where the best light displays are. Fuck me. One day they even ran a quarter page picture of a whole waterhead family out in the front yard basking in the glow of their pagan menagerie. I began to fantasize about a follow-up story on a 767 crashing on the house because the whole neighborhood looked like a God damned airport.

189 Passengers and Local Family Die in Freak Crash

Evolution in action.

What really pisses me off is that very often these same fuckers will tell you that Jesus is their personal savior. I don't get it. Do they not see the problem here? I once saw a life size nativity with a 5-foot Frosty in it. Yep, right there between Joseph and that chick he knocked-up. If Beelzebub does exist, he got his nut when he saw that. I guess he was Freezach from the northern kingdoms; his gift must have been incense made from reindeer shit.

What does a 9-foot blow-up animated Santa have fuck-all to do with the birth of the messiah. Every time I see one of those fuckers I want to jump out of my truck and slash it with a box cutter. Oh, wait, I've got a better idea. Since most waterheads think that if a little is good then a lot is better there are usually several deities from the x-mas pantheon in the front yard (along with a car on blocks and a chained up dog, oh, and no fucking grass). Maybe I could start driving around at night and rearrange the idols so that Santa's ass-fucking Rudolph or Frosty. I don't want to get started on Frosty again. My head will explode.

The sad part (OK, maybe not so sad) is that the waterheads don't realize that they are the ones getting fucked. They have bought the corporate line and now at the end of every year they waddle up to the trough and feast on the fetid remains of their own economic freedom. They spend billions of dollars that they don't have buying millions of cheap products they don't need manufactured in countries that steal their jobs by people getting paid pennies on the dollar.

MFC

Pro Tip....

If you live in the projects, it is generally considered "bad form" to have two (coun't 'em, two!) giant, lighted, inflatable plastic Santas in your goddam yard. I wish I'd had my camera to record this one.

Las Vegas X-mas

Each summer for the last few years I have vacationed in the American west. Many of the western states, Arizona, Utah, et. al. are notable for their national parks and monuments, in addition to their generally beautiful though often desolate scenery. I typically pick a city as a “base of operations” then rent a car and drive to sites of interest in the vicinity. The thousands of miles of trails available provide the opportunity to intimately experience the region's natural beauty.

One additional advantage of this location as a vacation spot is that it contains some of the most sparsely populated regions in the United States. The value of this is that, although the waterhead coefficient of the U.S. population is fairly uniform, with less population there are simply fewer waterheads to avoid. The decrease in energy spent deflecting the mind numbing sound waves emanating from their infectious gobs makes for a happier me.

Perhaps more on this later. . .

Now as anyone knows, a common topic of conversation between casual acquaintances is “What I did last summer.” It is important to note that almost no one actually wants to know what YOU did last summer the just want to burble about what THEY did last summer. I theorize that it is a waterhead version of “my dad can beat up your dad” - my vacation can beat up your vacation. They can't just be honest and just say “Wanna hear about my vacation” because that opens the door to refusal. While intellectually unable to engage in genuine subterfuge, they appear to do so and feign interest in your life so they can run roughshod over you to get to their real agenda.

“So, where did you go on vacation?”

“Well, I went. . .”

“Really, WELL I WENT. . .”

Then they ramble on about how great a time they had, and how it was so good for them to have some quality time with their grubs, and how they found cheap tickets to the boogers-of-the-stars museum on the web. “Oh, and you can actually see a nose hair in Angelina Jolie's. . . Blather, blather, blather.”

Here's a recent personal example.

“So, where did you go on vacation?”

“Well, I went out west. Northern Arizona.”

“Really, did you go to Vegas. You really need to see it. It's incredible.”

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! Why in Gods Navel would I EVER do that. That's a fucking nightmare. I shudder when I think about it. That place is corpulent with with the brain dead; the stench of it reaches high unto the heavens. I'd rather sit in the middle of my bed and hit myself in the head with a 3-pound sledge until I shit myself.

Besides I've already seen it. I've seen Christmas in Amurica.

I'll explain later. . .

Inanity. Volume 1, Number 1: Snow.

As time goes on we will use this space in our efforts to plumb the depths of the waterhead psyche in order to determine just how close they are to causing the universe to implode because of the emptiness of their souls and minds. One of my least favorite aspects of waterhead-kind is their innate ability to spew forth utterly worthless...

INANITY

NOUN: Total lack of ideas, meaning or substance: barrenness, blankness, emptiness, hollowness, vacancy, vacuity, vacuousness>

(From Roget's II The New Thesaurus, Third Edition)

Inanity is such a broad brush. In order for us to evaluate inanity as a primary trait in waterheads, we shall have to consider specific instances... specific conditions under which inanity mixes with the very air around us… suffusing our immediate environment with hypergolic boredom... such as the 24 hour period immediately preceding the forecasted beginning of any winter weather event (which I shall say more about later).

In all areas of our interaction with other humans we are expected to grow and mature as we go through life. Starting out with a walnut-sized lump of mush humans begin to learn things. As our heads grow (either from being filled with knowledge or from copious amounts of the dishwater colored liquid so prevalent in much of the population), so do our brains. Our thought processes go through various stages of development as well, ie: concrete operational, formal operational… Much of humanity seems to have arrested this mental development pretty early on. Here the species diverges into two streams, “normal folk” and “waterheads.” Some waterheads are possessed of the compulsion to open the blow hole under their nose and utter inane statements with the presumption that there might be someone within earshot who gives a shit. As bad as this is when it happens, the real danger is that one small inanity will almost always evoke more and more… spreading like an internet chain letter. But back to the weather…

It is quite common in the Northern Hemisphere during the winter months for surface temperatures to drop below freezing (32° F/0° C). Occasionally an extra-tropical cyclonic weather system will form near the boundary between warm and cool air masses. Since these systems derive their energy from warm, moist air rising and cool, dry air sinking, they are often accompanied by clouds and … you guessed it… precipifuckintation!

Now. During the colder months this precipifuckintation can come in many forms. There is “rain,” usually appearing when the temperature is at or above freezing. Next, when the temperature is above around 25° F but below 32° F, conditions are perfect for precipifuckintation in the form of “freezing rain.” As the temperature drops even more we might see “sleet.” Then, when the temperature is just right, you get “snow.”

Okay. Why in the hell am I bustin’ out with the scientific 411 on the white shit that falls from the sky in winter? I’ll tell you. I’m guessing that anyone who has made it this far possesses the capacity for abstract thought, so can we assume from the above that when conditions are right it’s going to fucking snow? Good.

Why are all the waterhead retards obsessed with this otherwise easily explained phenomenon? Why do they care that it is snowing in the next county over? Why in the frozen fuck do they have to purchase milk and bread when these conditions are imminent? Is it to give themselves an excuse to demonstrate that they are no better at driving than they are at thinking? Perhaps, but I’ll save that for another day.

But WHY, OH GOD WHY, must they discuss it with me!!!!??? Perhaps it is the weather… you know, maybe the dropping barometric pressure whips the dishwater in their heads to a froth, creating an intense pain for which the only antidote is the sound of their own voice. Why must they regurgitate the handful of sentences that will always frost my ass, “Did YOU get any snow?” “Think it will snow?” “It’s snowing in ….. (fill in the blank)” “They’re calling for snow, you know!”

This last one is particularly malignant. I can always see it coming in their eyes before they strike. Their eyes turn cold and gray and empty as the dishwater bubbles behind them. Their mouths turn up in a knowing smirk, as if the NOAA website were encrypted with a 256-bit double Kobinachi algorithm and they had the key! Then, almost in slow motion, their lips begin to move and a droning noise not unlike the sound of a record album set on 16rpm (yeah, I’m an old mother fucker).

“They’re calling for snow, you know!”

I avert my eyes to avoid being drawn in, but the damage is done. The inanity has burst forth from the waterhead’s maw like a Peter North cumshot devoid of DNA! Empty…. Harmless…. Only a few words. But other waterheads have heard… or perhaps sensed that there is something loose in the air! They pounce upon one another each vying to be the first to announce, with glee, that it might snow. Seeking to bask in the smug satisfaction of knowing that THEY have been the first to birth this tidbit of information to the world.

But what of the waterheads who were not first to speak of the frozen magic due to cover the land? There is no penultimate prize in this game. They will continue to burble about the impending storm. Speculating on the amount, the temperature, the size and shape of the goddam flakes… glorying in the sheer power of having simply spoken of the doom which is this latest weather event.

So, if you know someone who exhibits this behavior, you might send them here for a few months so that they can overcome their infatuation with snow. Or encourage them to commit suicide. Or both.

To be continued…gotta run out to buy some milk and bread. And beer. Würd.

über