Well…I’m back, I think.  After a long hiatus of not doing a damn thing, I have decided to come back to the playground of keystrokes and frolicker away.  Ha, I said frolicker.  I’m going through a little hiccup in my life right now and it’s called ‘Time for a New Gig,’ (hiccup).  For the past two years I have sat comfortably in my current job.  It was only till this past year that I became extremely agitated with it and had no love for it what so ever.  I am bored.  Bored out of my mind.  So, I have taken it upon myself to job search.  Yippy.

On another note, I’ve found myself in another wedding coming up in August.  It just so happens that the tuxes are being ordered through Men’s Wearhouse.  Men’s Wearhouse does not take measurements over the phone.  Men’s Wearhouse can fuckoff!  The closest Men’s Wearhouse is over 100 miles away and I’m not driving 100 miles, with $4 gas, to get measured for a fucking tux.

I’m bitter.     

So I’ve got this beautiful California bungalow style house out in the middle of the Midwest.  I’ve mentioned before in a previous post that there is still an upstairs room that is unfinished, but it has been the yard that has received the most attention as of recent.  I guess the upstairs will have to wait.

And by the way….it’s not that kind of grass that I’m growing!  You silly little freaks.

This is the first summer in the new digs and prior to moving in the City ripped up a good chuck of the front yard (something like 6 years ago they did this).  I think it might have been a neighbor’s sewer issue and our yard got the worst of it.  Anyway, there is about 15 ft. x 20 ft. – between the street and the sidewalk – that is, more or less, mud.   

The area is extremely shaded so it would be difficult to grow grass there, or so it appears.  To be honest, I don’t think anyone has attempted to rebuild that area of the lawn.  I know the City hasn’t done a damn thing because half the curb is still missing.  I would have thought that the previous resident would have tried patching the yard back up, but I could be wrong.  Either they tried and failed or they just didn’t give a shit.

Well, I’ll be damned, I give a shit.

For the past two weeks I’ve taken the ‘mud pit’ as a personal challenge.  I’ve doctored up the front (west side) and south side of the house with mulch and lots and lots of plants and flowers.  (Jesus, I’ve really gone domestic – all domesticated and shit – When was the last time I went to Toys-R-Us and Chucky Cheese???  When was the last time I built a fort in the backyard or a command center under the neighbor’s porch???? To freak’n long ago, that’s how long.) Okay… so those areas look great.  But it’s the ‘mud pit’ that draws my attention away from those areas.  It’s an eye sore.  It looks like shit. It looks like poop.

So the challenge is on.  I threw some grass seed on it, barrowed a garden weasel to till up the land (fyi, the weasel is a pretty bad ass garden tool) and started watering….nothing, zero, zilch….besides the neighbor across the street wishing me good luck, so I decided to get mid-evil on its ass. 

I’m pretty sure I can’t over seed the ‘mud pit’. So I purchased a bunch more seed (I think it was like 3 pounds) and I just so happened to come across a bail of straw and some awesome thunder storms. 

BINGO! 

Hell yes, I’m winning this mofo challenge.  I put about ¼ of the bail of straw over the seeded area, keeping the seed from blowing away, as well as keeping the birds from lunching on my seed, and keeping the moisture in.

This morning I noticed lovely little bright green blades of grass, sprouting up through the golden layers of straw, reaching to the heavens, all the while saying hello to me and laughing at my neighbor(s).

  (this is what it looked like before I got mid-evil)

    (this is what my grass will look like after the mid-evil ass beating)

Ha.  I love it.

If you ever wanted to take an extended vacation, say quit your 9 to 5, and follow a century of solitude to its end, this would be the year.  Right now would be the time to do it.  There is no better time than now. Trade in your pink slip for Chicago Cubs tickets and make plans for Wrigley Field in late October.

Yes, this could be the season the Cubs return to the World Series and maybe, just maybe, finally flushing away 100 years of frustration for its fans.

These guys could be the ones, sitting atop the NL Central Division while parading the best record in baseball so for this season.  The last time the Cubs owned the best record in baseball in early June was in 1908, the last time the Cubs won a Championship.

So it’s been a century in the making.  I’m one for big buildups.  The bad ‘karma’ ends in 2008. 

I believe.

I grew up watching the Cubs on WGN.  My grandfather was an early pioneer in the broadcasting of the early Cubs’ games on WGN. The Chicago Cub mystique is engraved in my DNA.

As a kid in the sandlot, I would act the likes of Andrea “The Hawk” Dawson, Ryne Sandberg and Shawn Dunston, and occasionally singing the 7^th inning stretch ‘Take Me Out to The Ballgame’ Harry Caray style. 

I worked one college summer as an engineer at a Cubs affiliate radio station, broadcasting Cubs games to future Cubs fans.

So it’s time to fathom the unfathomable.

I’ll make my first Cubs game of the season next Thursday afternoon when they take on the Atlanta Braves. 

I’ll also be watching the works of dissolving a century’s worth of drought in build up to the grandest celebration of a championship centennial…winning another one.

The Chicago Cubs will be the 2008 World Series Champions of Major League Baseball.

G.M. Shifts Focus to Tennis Shoes, Ditches Trucks, SUVs and some 30,000 Jobs

-spoof-

Detriot - General Motors Corp. will eliminate 30,000 jobs and close 9 North American plants, drastically cutting production of the sport utility vehicles and pickups.

In announcing the changes, G.M.’s chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, said $4-a-gallon gas prices had forced a “structural shift” by American consumers away from large vehicles into more fuel-efficient cars and even tennis shoes – according to an insider.

Yes, tennis shoes and/or running shoes.  One insider has said that G.M. is basically declaring the S.U.V. is dead and the production of tennis shoes is the way to go.

G.M. believes oil prices are changing consumer behavior, changing it rapidly, and before it’s too late people will be walking again.  G.M.’s thinking is who wants a 14-mile-per-gallon-soccer-mom-SUV when you can buy a pair of tennis shoes for the price of a gallon of gas and get just as far.

This reporter agrees.

But the 30,000 losing their jobs have a different take.  They plan on buying the new line of G.M. shoes.  They also plan on scaling a foot or two straight up G.M.’s ass, as well as a few oil executives. 

“I’ll give ‘em a structural shift,” said one out-of-job Canadian. ”A ’structural shift’ right up their ASS’ A!  Their SUV just ran out of gas! Tennis Shoes? They won’t be able to walk after I’m done with ‘em”

Again, this reporter agrees.

Okay, so I thought I was going to be all cool and stuff, being The Bat Hunter.  It turns out, while I was out at a social event last week, the girlfriend dropped the bat with a pillow that evening.  She took my flare, stole the show and took the podium out from under me by disposing the bat with one easy swing of the pillow.

Despite having very little thunder during my bat hunt expedition, guess what happened AGAIN last night? Damn right!  Bat #2, doce zorro volador!  Doce murcielago.  Doce.  Shit the bed. Shit the bed, again. 

(Why did I call the bat a flying fox?)

I have a beautiful house, decorated very nice on the inside and out.  The place has great feng shui, regardless of an occasional visit of a bat or two.  The main floor is beauteous, as are two of the three upstairs rooms. So, I guess, there is an exception.  There is one room upstairs that is not finished, which is probably messing with the upstairs feng shui and more or less throwing the entire house off the feng shui rocker.  I have a sneaky suspicion that my flying guests are entering through the unfinished room, the room with the least feng shui. 

This has to be the case.  The bats must be entering through the unfinished, currently being used as a, huge walk-in-closet of a room.  The walls are unfinished.  The floors are unfinished.  The entire room is unfinished.  The house is unfinished.  The feng shui is unfinished.  The only thing that is finished is a good night’s rest.      

I’m stuck.  I absolutely hate the feeling of a flying animal in a confined room while I sleep.  It creeps me out, even after shutting all the doors and closing the bat out, it makes it difficult to fall back asleep.  Paranoia sets in.  It’s a very uneasy, unfinished, feeling. 

So what could possibly be the reason for visit number two?  Does this creature’s visit have some sort of symbolic meaning? 

Is the bat the Guardian of the Night?  Does it represent longevity and double nature?  Does peace and wisdom come with a visiting bat?  Is the bat the totem of the shaman, teaching people to go into the night of inner darkness and emerge reborn while reminding them that eyes are only one way of seeing clearly? 

Does this make any sense?

Does the bat bring good luck while bringing happiness and peace?  Does it symbolize chaos and unhappiness?  Does soul take the shape of a bat when one is asleep?  Is someone trying to bewitch me? 

Or is it just a flying bat looking for a way out of a house?

Do you understand my situation?

I’ve got an English bulldog.  He is 11 months old.  That’s a picture of him at the top of your screen.  He looks much more ferocious in that picture, and the reason why I decided to go with that picture, than he does in person.   He is not as tuff as he comes off to be.

I’ve had a few posts on here about the conversations that we have had together.  The last conversation I posted was right before he went in to get neutered, or as I called it ‘snipped’.

He never woke up from his anesthesia.

Just kidding, that would have sucked. 

He is doing just fine, being balless.  The vet did a nice job.  Where his balls used to be, the sack remains and kinda resembles a very small package.  I think the vet did this to leave the bulldog some confidence as he grows through his developmental stages.   Maybe, to the bulldog, he believes he still has his dog balls.

Anyway, he goes back to the vet in 2 weeks to get the stitches out.

This was the conversation I had with him after his surgery.

Me:  Hey little buddy, how’s every thing going?

Dog:  Wow dude, this trip to the vet has been fucking crazy.  The son-of-a-bitch stuck me in the ass with something. Next thing I knew I was out. I feel like I have been sleeping for days, plus my sack hurts.  Don’t ever leave me in that fucking cage again with a vet with a needle.  Not cool.

Me:  Looks like you’re doing just fine.

Dog:  Well, I’ve been awake for the last 2 hours in that small ass cage.  I need to piss and take a crap.  I can do it here or you can take me outside.

Me:  Let’s go outside, looks like you need to use the bathroom.

Dog: Yee-haw, let’s go to the bathroom and get the fuck out of here.  Take my ass home.  I’m ready to go, damnit.  Plus, I haven’t ate in the last 12 hours, I’m hungry.

Me:  Sorry, buddy, no food till tomorrow.

Dog:  Whatever, I’m going to piss right here and I’m going to take a crap right there and then you’ll take me the fuck home and never leave me at this vet place again.  Getting snipped sucks - and I still don’t know what that means orther than have a sore ball sack.

Me:  That’s probably best at this point.  Let’s go home.

Have you ever thought that you’ve died but you kept living in your own world but to someone else’s world you were dead?

You actually don’t know you died but to those around you, in their world, you are dead.

Think about it.

I sometimes wonder that.

Have you?

In your world you are still alive and in your world people know you’re alive.

But in their world, you have died.

Can it happen more than once?

Have I died a thousand deaths?

Have you?

To you, in your world, I don’t existence.

You existence in mine.

End of our existence.

What’s the reason?

What for?

Are you alive?  

Fuck, I absolutely hate sleeping with a bat flying over head – especially when I’m sleeping in my house and not sleeping under stars, or something like that.

Two nights ago the bat arrived in our home, making the upstairs his bat cave.  Last night, he decided to fly around downstairs, making the downstairs his little bat dwelling.  He likes to visit us at 3 or 4 in the morning, which is not cool, swooping over head. Waking my ass up prior to 6:30 am does not fly with me.  My girlfriend kinda thinks I’m hallucinating and that I’m making her think of flying bat sounds, since she has only heard the bat fly over head and has not actually seen the bat.  This is not the case, as I have experienced a bat in the house two previous times (as I have mentioned before) and I have been off all hallucinogens this week.  I’m good to go, dammit.  And no, I’m not going through withdrawals….at least I don’t think I am.  Anyway…

 I know when there is a fucking bat in the house. 

I understand the little guy lost his way and is wanting out. He can’t eat 600 to 1,000 mosquito sized insects in our house, cuz we don’t have 600 to 1,000- mosquito sized insects in our house, they are outside.  So in the meantime, the little bat flies around and bat shits all over the house.  I’ve probably been bitten, the dog probably has been bitten and the girlfriend probably has been bitten and we will all die from bat rabies. 

You know, a half of 1% of bats have rabies, so of course I’ve been bitten by this bat.  I’m more likely to be bit by this bat than winning the lottery.  I bet that the bat has rabies. The damn bat is a half a one percenter and I’m going to die because of it.

Or, I become the hunter and not the hunted.  I have to hunt him before he hunts me.  A friend of mine was hunted by a bat once.  The bat actually attacked him, scratching his neck and back with it’s little bat feet.   DId you know bats eat with their feet?   The fucking bat was trying to eat him!  Fuck, that’s all I need is a bat trying to eat my face while I sleep.

There is only two options…invite Ozzy Ozborn over for dinner or become a bat hunter.  Oz probably can’t make the trip, or won’t make the trip, manly cuz I ant trippn…Thus, I have become The Bat Hunter. 

I am The Bat Hunter.

Tonight the bat goes down.  Tonight I dine in Hell.

Moderately Awkward

I asked you how awkward.  You answered moderately awkward. 

You say you’re not into being ‘that’ girl.  I say I’m not into being ‘that’ guy.

Yet, we strengthen rather than sever.

We both agree it was quite enjoyable.

Harmlessly awkward, being moderately awkward.