Some Decisions are Poor
Not since Adolph Hitler’s “Victory In Russia” tattoo has there been a worse decision.
Note: Napoleon had his tattoo removed while he was on Elba.
Not since Adolph Hitler’s “Victory In Russia” tattoo has there been a worse decision.
Note: Napoleon had his tattoo removed while he was on Elba.
I awoke with the sound of Lance punching buttons on the hotel phone. Lance had several conversations with hotel staff that morning, they progressed like this:
First Call: Hello, this is room 222. We don’t have any hot water…you say you’re working on it…okay. Thank you.
Ten Minutes Later
Second Call: Yeah. Room 222 still doesn’t have any hot water…it’s been running for ten minutes now…okay, I’ll give it five more minutes. Bye.
Five Minutes Later Exactly
Third Call: There’s still no hot water, and if I’m not mistaken it’s actually getting colder…(grudgingly) I’ll give it a few more minutes.
A Few Minutes Later
Fourth Call: What the hell? Is there going to be hot water or not?…Are you serious?…What the hell? Why didn’t you tell me that in first place?
“Guess what,” Lance said as jammed the phone receiver back into its place.
“I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and go with: there’s no hot water,” I replied.
“The hot water pipes froze and burst, and they’re still waiting on the plumber to get here.”
“What the hell, why didn’t they just tell you that in the first place?”
“I know!”
So Lance, Matt, and myself all took pseudo-showers.
A pseudo-shower consists of standing well out of the stream of water, lathering yourself up and rinsing yourself off with a washcloth that you repeatedly shove into the stream of water.
Note: If water freezes at 32.0 degrees Fahrenheit, this water was 32.1 degrees Fahrenheit.
The process was proceeding with minimal discomfort until I attempted to wash my hair. My hair lathered up nicely, but when I tried to rinse it out, it just seemed to lather more. I rinsed out the washcloth, wet it down and tried again. It lathered more. What kind of shampoo was this? It’s like those trick birthday candles that you can’t blow out.
Note: You blow them out–they relight. You blow them out–they relight. You blow them out–they relight. You blow them out–they relight. You smash the cake into a cousin’s face. Small children weep and your grandmother curses you out. How is that fun?
I came to the stark realization that I needed to stick my head directly into the stream. I took a deep breath, shoved my head under the water and began to scrub the shampoo out as quickly as I could.
At first it seemed to lather up even more. Suds were coming out my hair like clowns out of a Volkswagen. A wave of water washed down my back, it was really freaking cold. After about ten seconds of furious rinsing, the lather was completely out of my hair.
I stepped back, gasping for air, my body shuddering from the cold.
“Holy crap,” I exclaimed, “my testicles are completely inside my body.”
Then it was Al’s turn.
He stepped out of the bathroom looking pale and shivering. He looked like a rat that was drowned, revived, beaten and drowned again.
Note: Al always looked that way, but this was even more so.
“That’s worst shower I’ve even taken,” Al said.
“You took an actual shower?”
“Yeah. Didn’t all of you?”
“No. No we did not.”
“But you all said you did.”
“We lied.”
Al was so ticked off, he marched down to the front desk and got the bill reduced by half. He claimed it was because he was persuasive. I think it was because they felt sorry for him.
A resident of Westland, Michigan has filed an official petition with the Obama administration, asking the President to denounce the choice of Ben Affleck as the next Batman, and have the role recast.
The petition filer couldn’t be reached at his residence, his mother said that he was in the basement, and he didn’t want to be bothered.
Following in these footsteps of brilliance, I am now in the process of filing the following petitions:
If I have missed anything, let me know.
Number 15
Horse chigger bites itch like crazy.
Number 14
The way Steve is always referring to his beard as “The Babe Magnet.”
Number 13
They can never remember their lines.
Number 12
How they turn everything you say into something risqué by punctuating it with, “’tis what she sayeth.”
Number 11
The way they laugh hysterically after they intentionally lead you through a pile of horse crap.
Number 10
The Amish have no idea how to make a good martini.
Number 9
Sick of hearing Amish guys use the same tired pick-up line: hey baby, doth thee need your butter churned.
Number 8
The way goats smell when they’re wet.
Number 7
The way goats smell when they’re dry.
Number 6
Those smart-ass cameramen from Jersey Shore, sarcastically griping about how hard it was filming babes in bikinis on the beach.
Number 5
The way their body oil gets in all the equipment (sorry, also from Jersey Shore).
Number 4
The way Levi’s always parading around in nothing but his “Home of a Barn-Raising“ boxer shorts.

What it would’ve looked like if Al Capone had been from rural Pennsylvania instead of Chicago…and if he’d been fictional.
Number 3
It gets tiresome constantly having to fight off territorial crows every time you break for lunch.
Number 2
They’re constantly rambling on about their favorite movie, Witness.
Number 1
The way they all giggle uncontrollably every time someone says they’re from Intercourse.
It has recently been brought to my attention that my presence in the blogosphere has been lacking of late.
I have been presented with a list of possible reasons for my absence:
Note: If the previous item on the list made no sense to you, that’s because it was an inside joke, but trust me, it was freaking hilarious.
It’s been trying, but now I’m back.
Next post: Where I Really Was.
Credit: This list was written or inspired by a fellow Steelers fan, writer, and someone who knows my family.
All of the facts in the following post are completely true, except for most of the bits about me, and all the bits about Manti Te’o.
South Bend, Indiana, February 3 — “I thought we had a connection,” an exasperated Manti Te’o told a me in a recent interview. Evidently Te’o had formed a relationship that he had considered to be “very close” with the person known as the Tooth Fairy.
It began at an early age when Te’o was only two years old and had lost a tooth. His parents told him, if he placed it under his pillow before he went to bed, the Tooth Fairy would come that night. He placed the tooth under his pillow with eager anticipation. The next morning the tooth was gone and in its place he found a shiny silver dollar. His love affair with the Tooth Fairy had begun.
As the years progressed, so did Manti’s obsession with the Tooth Fairy. With the combination of his participation in football and his love of sugary snacks, he continued to lose teeth.
“I admired the gentle way in which she would remove the tooth from beneath my slumbering head,” Te’o told me, “I was one of the few kids who looked forward to going to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.” He then paused for a moment to wipe away a tear and compose himself. “I knew that it meant my beloved would be near that night.”
Te’o glared at me as I chuckled a bit too loudly. I apologized but then chuckled some more.
He explained how his relationship with the Tooth Fairy had intensified during his years at Notre Dame. He began leaving her love letters along with his teeth. She reciprocated by leaving him photos of herself and a phone number.
“We had magical conversations that lasted for hours,” Te’o told me.
“And you never suspected anything?” I asked him.
“Well, I did think it was a little strange that she sounded like an elderly Filipino man, but who’s to say how someone should sound,” he said as he showed me the phone number.
“This is a prefix from western New York,” I told him.
“My friends told me the Tooth Fairy was from Buffalo,” he explained.
I tried to get a statement from Te’o’s friends, but they were laughing to hard respond.
It seems, it was these friends that had played an elaborate joke on Te’o. A joke that brought his world crashing down around him.
It happened one fateful day while strolling through the electronics section in Walmart.
“I was walking through the electronic section of Walmart and I happened to glance over at the televisions. They were showing a movie. When I saw what was on the screen, I just froze in disbelief.”
Apparently the picture that Te’o had lovingly carried around with him in his wallet, and presumed to be the Tooth Fairy, was actually the Disney character Tinkerbell from the animated movie Peter Pan.

“Tooth Fairy” photo. Actually an elderly Filipino man from Buffalo, who may or may not have a hook for a hand.
“It didn’t give you pause that there was a pirate with a hook for a hand in some of the pictures?” I asked.
“Not really,” he explained, “it’s common for Filipino immigrants from Buffalo to have hooks for hands…my friends told me.”
Not wanting to ire Te’o with further chuckling, I decided to move on.
“How did it make you feel when you found out that the woman you loved was actually a fictional cartoon character?”
“It was devastating,” he answered, “it’d be like finding out that Mrs. Butterworth isn’t real.”
“Mrs. Butterworth?”
“You know, that lovely woman who makes the delicious maple syrup. I have a photo of her in my wallet too.”
I explained to Te’o that not only was Mrs. Butterworth not a real person, but Mrs. Butterworth’s isn’t even real maple syrup; it’s just corn syrup with brown food coloring and maple flavoring.
Te’o buried his face in his hands and began to sob openly.
The interview was over; it was time for the healing to begin.
In the new book, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & The Prison of Belief.” Lawrence Wright details Tom Cruise’s involvement in The Church of Scientology and the ultimate responsibility of both: protect humanity from the aliens living in our bodies, who are bent on destroying us and ultimately the planet.
It’s about time somebody got on this. I don’t know how many sleepless nights I’ve spent tossing and turning, fretting over the aliens living in our bodies, who are bent on destroying us and ultimately the planet.
Now that I know Tom’s on the case, I can allay these alien fears, because I know that once Tom Cruise starts something, he will see it through to the end, just ask his wife Mimi Rogers.
Sorry. Just ask his wife Nicole Kidman.
Again, sorry. Just ask his wife Katie Holmes.
Really? They seemed so happy.
Note: When I write that I’m no longer fretting over the alien living in my body, I’m not referring to the tapeworm, I’ve named him Henry, and he still bothers me.
Anyway, I am now freed to focus on some other wildly delusional phobias that I’ve been ignoring for far to long.
Maybe once Tom gets this aliens in our bodies thing sorted out, he can tackle some of the aforementioned problems, Jack Reacher would get it done.
So it’s December 22, 2012 and the world hasn’t come to an end. What a freaking rip-off.
For years now the hype has been building. There was going to be volcanoes. There was going to earthquakes. The Earth was going to flip over on its axis and cause huge tsunamis and global flooding.
John Cusack was going to heroically drag his dysfunctional family through one impossible scenario after another, defying the laws and science and pushing the Willing Suspension of Disbelief to its limits.
I’m disappointed in you John Cusack. I’m going to burn my copy of Say Anything.
All we got yesterday where I live, was an inch of lake effect snow. We were supposed to get six to ten inches. What an absolute freaking rip-off.
This post would be longer, but now that the world’s not coming to an end, I’ve got a pile of Christmas shopping to do.
If you can’t count on impending doom, what can you count on?

What we’re missing.
image source: wpclipart.com
It’s just so stupid.
Come on owners: you set a record for profits last year. The average person has to sell a kidney to get rink-side seats in your arenas. Both kidneys if you want a couple of beers during the game.
Come on players: your average salary is 2.4 million dollars a year. And the league pays for your dental work, that’s got to be worth at least 100 grand a year by itself.
Think about those poor sports fans in Western New York, sitting in their homes, buried under ten feet of lake effect snow, eating their Buffalo wings. They’ve got nothing to watch. (The Bill’s suck.)
Think about the sports fans in Minnesota; you can only do so much ice fishing.
And what about all of those sports fans in Canada. Sure, curling is entertaining, but unless they start whacking each other with those brooms, it’s just not the same.
Come on, figure it out.

What we’re not missing.
image source: wpclipart.com