What my Wife does on the Internet

Long sabbatical. Work has been crazy first it was the very public and stressful reorganization and layoffs-never before has drinking at work not only been so widely accepted, but encouraged, the people who would usually disapprove were just as likely to get let go as you were so we were all in the same boat. In the new world I find that instead of one new job, I have one new job, one old job, and a brand new fill in job. The last two are only temporary, so it goes.

Wanted to share this little dandy experience with you, because quite frankly I need to turn my mind off work in other ways besides summer reruns, although I am being reminded that "Arrested Developement" is the funniest television show ever made.

I was browsing the internet the other day, seeing if anything was on when I noticed something jump off the screen at me. I want to share those screen shots with you to see if you see it too.

You may have to click on the image to see it larger/clearer

It took me some time at first to find what it was that struck me. At first all I knew is that there was something very alarming on the page, that freightened me. If you are playing at home and trying to find what is wrong with this screen I will give you hint number one. It isn't that I'm logged in to ESPN as Marcus.

I'm not Marcus. He is a buddy of mine and he had access to ESPN Insider, but his subscription that he scammed from some promotional game online ran out so I'm thinking of ending the friendship with him, he's really just dead weight at this point.
This is Marcus...with a drunk guy who passed out on a bench in a Vegas casino. Not crucial to the story but a good picture nonetheless.

Back to the reason for the post. Here is a tighter snapshot on what caught my attention. Lets see if you can find it now.And one more just to be sure we are all reading this correctly.
Yes in the Google Search Bar it says "Skull Crush." What is most freightening is that I know I didn't search for this, so it only leaves one other person with access to the computer who could have searched for it; my lovely innocent wife. It appears that during her free time my Wife enjoyes doing google searches for some really weird stuff. If you've met her I know that this may be difficult for you to believe but I think my wife may be planning something terrible! I just wanted to make sure that I shared this with everybody so that if I die from head trauma, it might be worth taking a look at my wife as a suspect. I love her and she says she would never do anything to hurt me, but Google is telling me something completely different.

Ok I talked to my wife about this and she claims it was about getting tips on better technique for doing the exercise called "skull crushers" but until I see her actually doing them I remain suspicious.

Seriously though this is just a big joke; at least the part where I fear my Wife might kill me part. Everything else is true. I did see the search "Skull Crush" and it did freak me out that my wife was looking that kind of stuff up. Drunk passed out guy; he's real too.

When is Creepy not Creepy

I have an important question to pose to the readership. I must establish a few givens in this equation first. So if you're a 25 year old and you spot a 16 year old and you stare you're creepy. Also if you're a 25 year old and you see a 16 year old and say she's "hot" that is also creepy.

Now what if that 16 year old is a picture of your wife when she was 16 and you stare and say she's "hot" Is that still creepy?

Quick Update

Important news flash! My niece has a 11 toes. That isn't the big news; I noticed this the first time I held her, I thought it was freaking awesome then, and I find it even more awesome now. The news is that apparently it is genetic and since she is my brother's daughter that makes my brother a carrier, and since I am my brother's...brother...I'm a carrier. Slowly it is sinking in that I GOT ROBBED! I got an 11th toe in me somewhere and I plan on doing my best to grow it.

Live Long and Prosper!

I'm not a Trekkie but I had to put that there in the hopes that my Manager, a Star Wars fanatic would see it and become agitated because once I made the assumption that since she liked Star Wars that she would at least tolerate Star Trek. I was very wrong and she became very upset that I would even consider them to be on the same level.

Geena, Are we still on for the Vulcan Mind Melding during lunch tomorrow?

GO BACON!

Been a long time, things have gotten interesting at the job. Lay offs are coming. Not a stretch to say that everybody has been affected by layoffs in the past year; whether it is a loved one or at your job, layoffs are everywhere, thankfully this post is not about layoffs.

Its about Bacon. It seems vegetarians have devised a clever weapon in their fight against bacon. They have created this panic around bacon in hopes that they relentless thrashing they take from bacon daily. Last I checked it was Bacon: 1,763,926,746,119 Vegetarians: 0. It is an accepted standard that Bacon will have earned another thousand victories over vegetarians worldwide by the time you are finished reading this post.

The weapon I am speaking of is the supposedly highly fatal swine flu. For a good week or two humanity was collectively soiling its britches over this new killer. People stopped going to Mexico! That is a lot of middle aged housewives and horny teenagers deciding that it isn't worth cheap legal and illegal narcotics.

Also Egypt took great caution when it came to the Swine Flu. It was reported that the government ordered all Pigs slaughtered and burned as to eliminate the chance of any outbreak. Even though it is not actually transmitted from Pig to Human.

Turns out the "Swine" flu is no worse and actually less dangerous-more people will day of the common flu this year than Swine flu and is treated with fluids and rest. One of the "Swine" flu deaths in Mexico was from a woman who contracted the disease from her middle aged son. The woman died about a week after contracting the virus. She was 98 years old! Nobody thought that she might have possibly died because she was an old sack of bones?

This is the first blow of any kind that Vegetarians have dealt to bacon in the thousands of years that the war has been raging on. However; they will not be awarded a whole point for the victory because of the deceitful nature that they went about it. So here is the official update. Bacon: 1,763,926,747,119 Vegetarians: .75!

It is actually VERY impressive that even in the face of a global panic Bacon has taken the biggest right hook it could have been dealt and it hopped right back up. Given humanities unmatchable capacity for panic this can not be overlooked. GO BACON!

I don't even know what this is about

So now that I'm a full time employee I've gotten a lot busier (I'm learning Chinese) and haven't had the energy to share my stories. That makes me sad.

Go here and check out my friend Jamie's blog. Interesting take from a girl trying to make it in the big city. Contrast it with my sis-in-law's blog and you've got both sides of the spectrum covered.

Side note about my Sister-In-Law's blog. If you didn't come to my Blog from her's then you need to know its all about her kids. It is because of her son that it will appear that I will live for an unbelievably long time, because somehow at 3.5 he looks more like me than I did when I was 3.5! Also her daughter hates me because I refused to hold her as an infant because I thought she was too fragile for me to handle. I hope some day she will be able to recognize this kind act as something that contributed to her success in life.

A few realization I've had over the past two weeks...

I've never met a Japanese person who is remotely close to being rude or a jerk. They are the nicest people I've ever met; so polite! I think the closest is one of my best friends Marcos (His name is actually Marcus but...you know what I'll save that for the next post.) but he's half German so its a push. But his Mother (Full blood Japanese) is an absolute sweetheart!

In Japan a Corn Dog is called an "American Dog" and the Japanese that I know love 'em! I also am told that they are 50 times better in America.

Chinese is hard!

Now that my birthday is creeping up I'm realizing I never thought I would ever be 25. Until now, a week and a half before my 25 birthday I was never able to picture myself as 25. It is kind of tripping me out that at 25 I'm feeling the same as I did at 21. The only difference is that I have a college degree, a job, and drink less Busch Light. (Yes, I said "less")

No Points for Remembering

My anniversary is only two and a half weeks before Valentine's Day so it helps me stay focused and not forget. When all the Valentine's Day marketing kicks in (December 26th) I know to start thinking about Anniversary.

I have gone to great lengths to ensure I will never forget my anniversary. First I have it posted on my Google calendar, scheduled to repeat annually, and it sends me an email every day leading up to my anniversary for four days. It is also a recurring event on my work calendar and it alerts me the day before and the day of. And finally it is in my phone and alerts me two days before, one day before and the day of. Needless to say my bases are covered.

Our anniversary was on a Tuesday this year and we had gotten away the weekend before to celebrate. We had agreed on a budget for our anniversary and I that we would exchange gifts and cards on the actual day. Tuesday morning rolls around and my wife wakes me up at 5am to say goodbye. She's crazy she gets up that early to go to the gym before work, and I'm crazy enough to let her wake me up to say goodbye, normally this is not an issue because I'm hardly coherent enough to care. Most of the time I tell her good night, or physically push her or slap her arms away, as has happened on a few occasions. I never remember what I say or do, she fills me in when she gets home from work.

On Tuesday morning I had the awareness to say happy anniversary and bring her in for a big hug. I was so freaking happy that I remembered. I can't begin to tell you what a relief it was to have that not hovering over me all day. The pressure that would have caused to be sure that the first words I say to her when she gets home were "Happy Anniversary" is immeasurable.

During the day I had multiple conversations about how it was my anniversary with my coworkers. I even wrote my wife an email wishing her happy Anniversary just to be sure that what I believed to have happened this morning wasn't a hallucination.

When she walked in the door from work my first words to her were "Happy Anniversary" I was so pumped. Unbelievable relief that I had made it, remembered my anniversary; I was patting myself on the back so hard. After she had been home for about 30 minutes she walked out fo the bedroom and handed me a card...

I had been so focused on remembering the day, and in my excitement for my success of remembering the significance of the day I had completely failed to pick up a card and flowers. Needless to say there was nothing that could be done to relieve the disappointment that I had in myself, let alone her disappointment. Running over to Fred Meyer and getting a card and some flowers would have only made it worse. I to bear down and take my licks on this one, and believe me I'm still taking them and I deserve them. I have learned a valuable valuable lesson...A successful anniversary is about more than just remembering; follow through.

I made it up for her on Valentine's day, she got flowers the day before and the day of Valentine's day and a card. I even sat through a estrogen powered movie "He's Just Not That Into You" fitting as I was not into it all, but I was very into redeeming my monumental screw up.

I will say this for the movie, while it failed to show any kind of redeemable qualities as far as entertainment value for me. The droves of sappy "I talk to the characters in movies really loud" women that surrounded me made the price of admission totally worth it. It was a movie that exaggerate stereotypes, more than usual for Hollywood, and there were many many women in that theater that outed themselves as just as crazy as the characters who were carefully crafted to come off as desperate and crazy as possible. Is the female demographic not the easiest demographic to reach? That being said you flash anything that remotely looks like cleavage and you've penetrated the male demographic so its pretty much a wash.

Ladies and Gentleman, you're world in 2009. 2bro2b?

I Think I'm Mad, I think I'm Mad

My mind has been wondering a lot recently. I've decided My mind is much like nuclear energy; when used within its intended parameters and intentions perfectly safe and beneficial for all. However when used irresponsibly without boundaries as has been the case recently the results can be disastrous. I will take you on a journey of my realization that the railroad ruined the west coast. Stay with me because it all starts with Tienanmen Square Man and Penguins.

After seeing, for a split second, the famous image of the man standing in front of the tank in Tienanmen Square. My next thought was what if instead of a man it was a penguin, or a turtle. How less important, but more funny does that image become. So I tried it out with much help from the internet, and I liked it so I threw it up on my blog header.

How do Penguins in the arctic feel about the Penguins at Sea World in sunny California? At first I thought they were surely jealous. The weather and the lady penguins are probably strutting around with a little less fur or some penguin sexy equivalent right?

A half hour or so later-yes I thought about it this much-I have come to the realization that Arctic Penguins feelings about Southern California Penguins probably are the same as my Human feelings about Southern California Humans. (Beware gross generalizations are forthcoming and probably some hurt feelings. I am speaking at nobody directly. To be honest my generalizations are mostly based on watch the Hills with the wife.)

I determined that neither of the two Penguins identify with the other. Southern Cal Penguin thinks Arctic Penguin is crazy for living up in the freezing cold walking around in a giant circle so that his internal organs don't freeze. Conversely the Arctic Penguin takes one look at Southern Cal Penguin and knows that he isn't living in the real Penguin world. They are living a life that very few get to live, and have little to no idea of the consequence that await them for failing to act like a proper Penguin.

Getting over to the West Coast wasn't like going for a hike at Multnomah Falls. If you survived it was because you were tough as nails. Luck had a hand in it, but it dind't matter how lucky you were, if you were as dumb as some people seem to be today you weren't getting to the rockies. Only the tough ones made it out here and the Midwest and Mountain States took care of everyone else.

Even if you were dumb and really lucky, luck runs out and you die when you don't know how to hunt, or farm.

Then they find gold and suddenly there is tons of wealth in California, and the richies want to get over there, but not the hard way. Then comes the freaking railroad! Letting any rich wimp buy a ticket and come on over and wuss the place out. This is where my distaste towards California comes from. Worse yet on this journey I found out that there was somebody I am more dissatisfied with; Thomas the Train.

I had a childhood filled with positive memories of Thomas the Train and now after 30 minutes he's dead to me! The mind is man's worst enemy.

Facial Hair

I was being lazy and not shaving. Then I left it up to my wife to tell me when to shave. No matter who's fault it was the point is it looked awful! At first I thought I looked older, looking back on it now I think I just looked like a guy who couldn't grow consistent facial hair.

I will say I looked much less creepy with facial hair than I did with long hair. My goal then was to look like Heath Ledger in "A Knights Tale" but it came out "Nick Nolte's mug shot" that was creepy.

Edit: My sister in law was pointing out that this post was missing a picture. While I don't have a picture of me with patchy facial hair or even long hair trust me it is for good reason, but to give you an idea of me with the long hair I have added a copy of Nick Nolte's Mug shot.

Peanut Butter Update

A little update regarding my frustration with JIF and Skippy and their blatant disregard for sensible use of adjectives in the quantifying of the crunchiness of their product. For those of you who missed it I found myself frustrated because plain crunchy peanut butter doesn't exist. They go from creamy to extra crunchy!

After numerous letters to the offenders and polite responses trying to validate their ineptitude I decided to take matters into my own hands.

So over the weekend I went into Winco to pick up some peanuts so I could make my own peanut butter. As I went to enter the line to pay a man in a nice business suit swooped in front of me and cut me off. Nobody can say no to a bargain. His cart is pretty full and all I have is my bag of peanuts and a dream of just crunchy peanut butter. The following is the dialogue that took place.

Me: excuse me sir? Would you mind if I went ahead of you? I just have these peanuts.

We'll pretend his name was Richard; definitely was a Richard.

Richard: Sorry buddy you've gotta wait like everybody else.

Me: Really man it would honestly take 30 seconds to a minute.

Richard: Sorry man, guess you're out of luck.

At this point I was ready to take things to another level. After looking at the lady behind me in line with a disgusted look on her face shoot daggers at him with her eyes I decided to just be patient and leave it be.

I was certainly still agitated and as he emptied his cart I fought to control my frustration as he placed his items on the conveyor belt he felt it necessary to not let any item get within six inches of another. The result was a poorly packed conveyor belt. I figured that my frustration with this was coming from his refusal to let me go in front of him so I looked at the floor and took a deep breath.

When I lifted my head again the mans wife was joining him. I looked at her face just in time to see a flood of disappointment wash over her face. We'll call her Justine.

Justine: What the he'll are you doing?

Richard: what do you mean?

Justine: are the canned beans fighting with the chowder? This is one of the least considerate things you can do in a grocery line. I can't believe anyone is that clueless.

Richard: what did I do wrong?

Justine: there are people behind you who need to put stuff on it also.

She turned and pointed to the line behind. She looked in my hand and I watched her face again. The puddle of disappointment on her face dried up to make way for the stream of anger.

Justine: is that all you have?

Me: Uh yah.

Justine: He has one item, you should have let him go in front of you.

I was interested to watch this take its course. I knew full well where it would once I said what I said, but I couldn't help myself

Me: I actually asked if I could but was told that I was out of luck.

Lady behind me: He did ask

I didn't feel an ally would be necessary in order to escalate things, but when the lady behind me chimed in I was so happy. Without it things never would have gone where they did. What made her participation even better was that she was about 65 years old. The stream of anger was over taken by a river of rage! She turned and swung as hard as she could slapping him in the back.

Justine: You are a monumental idiot! It is one freaking item, it would have taken him 30 seconds to get through the line.

I so badly wanted exclaim that I had said that as well.

Lady behind me: he said that too!

This lady behind me was a pro, it felt like she knew exactly what she was doing. Just laying in the grass waiting for those moments of silence and adding just little drops of gasoline on the fire.

Justine: I can not believe you! This is probably one of the smallest sacrifices you would ever have to make and even when the logical reasons of why its a good idea are explained to you, you're still to selfish to do it. UNBELIEVABLE!

I never could have imagined it being this good. I turned to look at the woman behind me who at this point was bright red, and bouncing uncontrollably with giggles; covering her mouth to muffle the sounds as best she could.

Richard: I'm sorr...

Justine: Just go bag the groceries. You've wasted enough of every bodies time today.

Richard walked to go begin bagging the groceries, completely emasculated with his head hung low. If you've ever seen a freshly neutered dog then you've seen this scene. Justine turned towards me,

Justine: I'm sorry about that. He gets in these selfish modes and cops an attitude and I told him next time he does it that I'm going to embarrass him. Lets hope he learned his lesson.

I nodded and accepted her apology and she left. I handed the cashier my peanuts and turned to look at the lady behind me in line.

Me: Did that just happen?

She was still laughing, so proud of the part she played.

So while that was probably the biggest tangent ever the point is I got peanuts, made peanut butter, its awesome, and I am calling it Wonder Boy's Just Crunchy Peanut Butter. So forget you JIF and Skippy you'll never see another dime from me! When it comes to my peanut butter I'm a DIYer!