On Thursday the home team celebrated 10 years of Holy Matrimony. Hey- the world didn't end! I guess I was wrong that one time. Ten years, man! TEN YEARS! That's a lot of years. All pretty good too. I think B's sister Jessie summed it up best when she said, "You two may be the only people on the planet who actually should be married." Clearly she has not been witness to many successful relationships.

I was in a bind as to what to get her for this momentous occasion. There are a few problems/situations I had to overcome. First, her birthday falls exactly a week before our anniversary (I know- I should have worked that out better). For that I had already promised her a new stereo for her Hyundai Santa Fe, which is not my cup o' tea as far as cars go, but she likes it well enough. It has a pathetic radio, and beyond its already laughable output, one of its crossovers shorted out so there's no bass on the left side of the car. Sounds like shit. So, I said I'd get a new system put in it, which will no doubt set me back a bit. Therefore, didn't want to spend a lot on the anniversary thing. But I didn't want to be a cheapskate either, ten years doesn't come along that often. Jewelry? RIGHT OUT. I'll tell you why. Becky's never been into the bling, which I'm eternally thankful for (we wouldn't be married if she were a jewelry girl- not my type), but she has a few things that I've gotten her. Of course, there's the engagement ring from all those ages ago. And there's the diamond earrings from Xmas a few years back. She wears that stuff all the time. Oops- until recently. Couple months ago the diamond popped out of the ring setting while pushing the kids around at the zoo, never to be seen again. Then, last weekend B was outside pulling weeds or someshit and Casey crashed into her head, knocking an earring out. Can't find that one either. So, you can see why I am feeling a bit gun-shy about another trip to the jewelry store.

I ended up just going to Target & getting some stuff for the yard (which we're really into making nice at the moment) and another frigging iPod. We have like four or five of those things now. None of the real cool video ones though, these are all older music-only types (but I digress). This one's neat, it's just one of the little clip on dudes without the screen or anything. She's been doing some exercising lately and always complains because she left her iPod at work or the battery is dead or whatever. This one is tiny and clips on your shirt, so it's really handy for working out. And it is pink, so automatically loved by females the world over. Also, and this is where the cleverness begins, it is made out of aluminum, and everybody knows what the symbol for ten years of marriage is, right? Yes, aluminum. Like how fifty years is gold and two years is, I dunno, sand or bisquick or something? Well ten is aluminum. Well, tin, actually; but the powers that be say that in modern times aluminum is an acceptable substitute since tin is not so plentiful. I researched it on the Internet!

To add to the cleverness I bought some aluminum foil to use as wrapping paper. I can not be more clever! I wrapped all the presents up, and admittedly they looked like something that belonged buried in a freezer somewhere. But ten years... aluminum foil wrapping... THAT IS WICKED CLEVER.

B makes it downstairs in the morning and eventually sees the shiny, crinkly, razor sharp mess of crap I left on the table with the card on top and says, "Ooh! Presents! HEY- did you use all my foil for this?!?"

Okay, so maybe it would have seemed more clever if I did not have to explain why it was clever, as Becky did not know the significance of aluminum = ten years of marriage. Without that pretext in mind it may have seemed that I was just wastefully using aluminum foil to wrap boxes (badly), when we have hundreds of square feet of perfectly good and actual wrapping paper stored in the attic you boob (the boob being me). I said, "NO! I BOUGHT THIS FOIL SPECIAL! Because, um, it's like ten years? With the aluminum, which is sort of like tin? You know- like it said on the internet? Over there on the computer? I'M CLEVER!"

Then I got the rolleyes that only ten years of marriage can perfect.

UNRELATED- Becky got my favorite precooked meatballs at the grocery store. They are AWESOME- add some spaghetti sauce and a big bun & you got yourself an instant meatball sub, which is pretty much my favorite thing. THE BEST PART- when you open up the meatball package, it smells like fart. Totally. You peel back the plastic and think, "Aww yeah- fart." This saves so me much time. No waiting around several minutes for gastrointestinal processes. This gets it out of the way before I even have to think about it. Interestingly, when the actual meatball farts come- they smell like flowers.

That about wraps up this entry. I'll leave you as I often do, with some dangerously photographed license plates attached to cars moving at high speeds on the freeways of Cleveland. Everyone is fortunate that I am so good at steering with my knees.

Tags: What? License Plates The Home Front Good Times Lunch

Today I dropped off the kids with Becky's folks like I do every Monday & Wednesday. Ty took off like he does and then I handed Casey off with Becky's dad. I waved and said bye-bye as I walked back to the car like usual, not expecting any response, because, y'know, autism!

I was halfway around the Element when I heard a little voice say, "Bye!" I paused for a second, trying to figure out if I heard what I thought it was, and then I ran back around to see Casey and Grandpa still at the doorway. I go, "Casey? Did you just say 'bye' to me?"

He said "Bye! Bye!" and waved!

Made my day.

Tags: Kids Autism Good Times

I'm in my favorite local (sort of) bar, boozing it up all alone on a Saturday afternoon. Becky's got the kids in Columbus visiting the sisters and I'm left to my own devices today. Also, in bigger news, I'm all caught up with work. I stayed up until three every night this week and just DID IT. My last thing was a new illustration for the hot sauce guys. Somehow these two mega-italian dudes (real characters, I like them a lot, plus they pay fast) who needed a label illustration for some hot sauce they invented got my name & I drew a three-quarters naked girl riding a donkey for them a year or so ago. Evidently the sauce for which I made up this illustration for has won some awards and is quickly becoming very popular. So much so that they contracted me to do illustrations for four other new varieties, as well as a new variation of the original girl-on-donkey drawing that will be reproduced huge and mounted on the back of a bus they just bought to travel around the country in. Fun stuff! Here's the new art if you're curious-

You might be thinking that this girl's feet are impossibly tiny. That's because the hot sauce guys have absolutely no interest in feet. Boobs? You bet. I recall several conversations the first time I drew this- "This is really great. Really. But, uhh-" "Let me guess, you'd like to see bigger boobs." "YEAH!, I mean, yes, the boobs could be bigger."

Yay! My pizza just came. BRB-

Okay, I'm back. A few things about Mark's Time Out Grille, the bar at which I currently sit. First, it never seems like it should be the right place to go, but invariably it is. I don't know why exactly, there are a few closer places I like just fine, but something is always wrong with those places. It's not like I get out a lot, and certainly almost never without the wife & kids, so I've learned not to take any chances when it comes to sitting someplace drinking by myself. The music here is never something I would pick myself, but it's always just right, They just played the whole first disc of Billy Joel's greatest hits, most of which I haven't heard in a long time (mostly because I was never that big a fan). I must say that old Billy (as opposed to the "new" Billy songs that came out after 1982. God I'm old) sounds better every year as pop music becomes more soulless and generic. Can you believe that these were "pop" songs when they first came out? Weird. Another thing- they are totally disregarding the new Ohio law that says there can be no smoking in public buildings. At all. Under Penalty of Law and fines and public stoning and all that. But there are people lighting up all over. I actually voted for that law (which I regret now because it's a fascist hypocrisy and a lot of businesses are hurting because of it) because I don't like to smell bad when I get home. But, for some reason, Mark's wouldn't be right if I didn't smell bad later. So that's all good. AND- the pizza is excellent. No lie- some of the best around.

I've been on internet hiatus since basically October, so I've missed a few things. Mostly boring things. Xmas was good, except that Becky bought WAAAAYYYYY too many toys for the boys. I was actually mad at her for it, but not because of the money- toddler toys really don't cost very much. It was just so much stuff, they'll never play with it all. They aren't even into opening presents yet, so Becky spent like three days wrapping all the presents and she & I ended up opening all of them as Ty & Casey jumped on couches and spilled apple juice. Casey especially couldn't care less about any of the new stuff, he liked the abacus that was the very first thing we opened for him and still hasn't played with any of the other crap. And all the new toys take up so much room in our house, you can't walk anywhere anymore without tripping or breaking an ankle on something plastic that was made in China or India or Mexico. I have broken five ankles since New Year's. Of course, Becky was upset with me because I was upset with her, and words like "SCROOGE!" and "YOU HATE CHRISTMAS!" were thrown around, but whatever. I have a feeling that no matter what agreement we come to before Xmas about a limit to what we're getting the kids, it will be egregiously broken by the wife every year, so I guess it's best not to fight it.

In October my brother & I took sort of an impromptu long weekend trip to Florida to visit our grandparents. I drove the whole way from Cleveland and back. That was a lot of driving, but I'm a creature of the wheel on these things. We could have flown, but it was cheaper to drive, plus we needed an excuse to come & go when we wanted. I love my grandparents, but a little goes a long way, know what I'm saying? They aren't getting any younger, and we felt we needed to get down there when we could. It was a good trip overall. Here's a picture I got from their neighborhood-

THERE'S FLORIDA!

I had written a whole long thing about how awesome and transcendent the Fiesta Bowl with Boise State beating Oklahoma was, but then my program here crashed and I lost most of it. I'm not the only loser here though, NO- it is you, dear reader, who is the biggest loser now. But, shit happens and I apologize for nothing. It was a really inspired paragraph, though. Lots of drama and whooping like an idiot and whatnot. Oh well.

Now it's Tuesday and I'd better post this thing. I leave you with the Xmas present I made for the grandparents this year, click this for the Tyler & Casey 2006 movie. I was trying to embed it into the actual text here, but I haven't got that worked out just yet. So, it's a 28mb QuickTime link for YOU! Might take a while to download. Patience....

Tags: I Am Professional Pictures What? Good Times Lunch Travel Sports

I'm buried in work, so I've been limiting distractions like teevee and internet and breathing and sleeping and showering and masturbating and eating. Also masturbating. Did I say that? Because I'm totally limiting that. Just like the President used to say back when he still had balls, I'm "staying the course". I'm also limiting sexual relations (like with other people), but not as much by choice as I like to tell all my friends in the monestery. They think I have iron willpower, and we'll just let them keep on thinking that.

Anyway, I miss doing dumb stuff like typing words that appear here because it's fun. Also I miss other fun stuff in general, but let's not dwell on that. I know- I'll tell you about how everybody here is sick. Umm, that's it I guess. We're all sick. LOOK

!
MY COMPUTER HAS A CAMERA

It sure is dark in there!

I'm breaking internet silence to wish you all a Merry Xmas and whatnot. What? Not! AND I have some neato photos to share that will surely get your Yule Log or your Menorah burning bright. Sorry if I left out Kwanzaa in that last sentence, I don't know what people set on fire during Kwanzaa.

There's this house in view of one of the major freeways here that is lit up like the Grizwald house in Christmas Vacation. Don't believe me? Check it out- I shot this myself just the other night.

Every one of those bulbs is taped to the house so the strands of lights will stay perfectly straight and still in the wind. I would definitely do this if only I had some free time. Oh yeah.

That's all for now. I leave you with a dark picture of me & Tyler in the basement. Bye bye!

Tags: What? Kids Pictures Good Times

Honestly, I set out to get a salad.

I had it in mind all morning that I wanted a salad. This doesn't happen a lot, usually only when I'm constipated, or when my guts feel all backed up, or those times when I can't poop right. I went out with salad on my mind. "Gonna get a salad!" I said as I left the building, to anyone who would listen. They said, "Must be a little backed up today, eh?" and I said "Hoo-boy, you got that right!"

I drove to Wendy's because I like their salads, and the drive-thru line stretched out into the street. I didn't feel like hanging out in the intersection with my blinker on until somebody decided if they wanted a small, medium or large size combo; so I changed directions and went towards McDonald's because their salads are okay too. Huge line at the drive-thru! I didn't want to wait in that one either! And it's cold outside today, so no way I'm getting out of my car. No SIR.

Now I'm MAD. Mad at salad. I say, "Fuck salad!" and drive across the street to the Burger King where there is almost never a long drive-thru line and I don't like the salads so much. "Fuck salad!" I said again to anyone who would listen, which was no one because I was by myself in my car. I now wanted the opposite of salad, because fuck salad. I saw this poster for the BK ANGUS SHROOMS AND SWISS that looked mammoth and disgusting, and I was all set to order that when I got to the speakerbox. But then I saw it has lettuce and mayonnaise on it. You know what that is? SALAD.

I tell the girl yakkin' at me through the speaker, "What do you have that is the opposite of salad? I want a combo of that."

"Uhh... what? Ah- we have a BK STACKER, it says right here on the poster it is the opposite of salad."

My BK STACKER was two BK beef (not to be confused with real beef) patties, bacon, cheese, cheese sauce and pickles.

I'll get that salad in for dinner, unless I'm still mad at salad, in which case fuck salad.

Tags: Lunch Good Times

It's no secret that I have a preoccupation with vanity license plates. I think this is because, unlike some other states, in Ohio you have to pay extra to get personalized plates. And it's not like you can just pop in to the DMV and pick up your custom plate- you have to order it special after standing in line with the usual happy folks, wait a few weeks for some convicted felon to make it for you, and then go stand in line again to pick it up. That's some serious commitment to your message. You will forever be linked to that word or phrase that you went out of your way to bolt to your automobile, so better make it good. Every time someone sees your car, be it driving slowly by the schoolyard like you do, parked in front of the 24 hour porn shop by the freeway like you always are, or maybe catching a nap on the roadside after drinking your lunch again, everyone will know it's you because your plate is so unique. In high school I knew this guy who inexplicably loved the Cleveland Crunch, our indoor soccer team (previously named The Force, which was cool, but then Nestle bought the team and named them after a candy bar). Anyway, he got plates that said "CRUNCH" for his car. SO GAY I know. That's what everyone would always say- "Is that Frenz's gay CRUNCH car? That's SO GAY!" And Frenz was not gay, but those plates... totally. I used to make fun of his CRUNCH plates, and then he would say, "Well, at least I have a car to put plates on!" and then I'd say, "OH MAN YOUR CAR IS GAY."

It's true I didn't have a car in high school and I had to tool around my mom's blue catering minivan, but it made me feel like a big man to belittle others, even though they drove me everywhere.

Yesterday I was on my way back to work from Wendy's with our Big Bacon Classic combos and I saw a great license plate. I punched myself in the head as I realized I didn't have a camera with me, because I like a visual record of these things. But anyway, this lady was driving around (smoking AND talking on a cell phone) with this awesome plate, which I know was supposed to be read as "sweetie pie", but I guess someone else in Ohio already had that, so this lady had to go with "SWTY PIE". Of course, that's "sweaty pie". Now, because of this license plate, we're all thinking* of a raunchy G-string and squat-thrusts in a hot, stinky room.


*Well, now we all are.

Tags: License Plates What? Lunch Good Times

Wife gets home from the Indians game a little tipsy- had to work the luxury box for some bigshots in town for The Company. Anyway, I'd put the kids to bed a long time before and we're on the couch.

ME: "So, uhh, wanna do it?"

SHE: "Oh, sure."

ME: "AWESOME!" (jumps up, arms up signifying glorious victory)

SHE: "I'm hungry though- get me a bag of Doritos."

ME: (runs, retrieves snack size Doritos)

SHE: "Thanks."

ME: "I COULD TOTALLY OPEN THAT BAG IF YOU WANT ME TO!!!"

Tags: The Home Front Good Times What?

"Waaa! My baby doesn't sleep and I'm miserable! Waaa!" I'm shaking my head disapprovingly right now. Not at you, but sort of about you. You know, like behind your back to all our mutual friends. Because I'm a parent, and while I won't go saying I know everything (like anyone could know everything- c'mon!), I will say that I know that you're doing everything wrong. Oh man- if I shake my head disapprovingly any harder it will flop right off my neck.

Look- my kids- BOTH OF THEM- totally make it through the night until eight in the A.M. without a peep. Perfect angels! Maybe you just need to let that baby scream or something- he/she will fall asleep eventually. That's what we do and look at me... fresh as a daisy and smelling like a cool autumn breeze. And did I mention chipper? God DAMN I'm chipper. You can't see it, but I just did a back flip. That's right. I smell so fucking awesome you wouldn't believe it! It's a healthy, well rested musk I exude. God I love exuding musk! I've gotten so many nice compliments from breathless passers-by. Passers-by in these parts know a good thing when they smell it, and they aren't afraid to tell you all about it. Credit where credit's due and all that. I smell so frickin' good!

COMPLETELY UNRELATED SUBJECT- by some miracle my kids both decided they like sleeping all the way through the night and I only had to get up one time this whole week and that was for only like fifteen minutes. Also, I'm in a short lull freelance art-wise. The long and short is that I got a whole week's worth of solid shuteye and general me-time for the first time in... wait for it.... here it comes.... TWO YEARS. Give or take a month or so. Wow. Wow. Wow. Can I get a Wow? Wow. And I've hardly been kicked or kneed or stomped square in my balls by twitchy babies for almost seven days now. WARNING to all the new dads out there in Tronville, your balls are going to be violently abused by your twitchy babies. They love nothing more than jumping on your fucking balls. Fuck man, I wish I could tell you your balls are going to be okay, but they won't. I'm so sorry. About your balls.

I really seriously considered using my evening freedom me-time to make a couple posts here and shit like that, but I opted to go the super selfish route and rent some movies. Now, I have actually rented a few movies in the last couple years, but what happens is that I go into Blockbuster or wherever and can't decide what I want to see since I haven't seen anything in, well, two years; so I end up renting three movies thinking I'll find time in the forthcoming week to watch all of them. Then I end up returning them four days late and unwatched. Maybe I watch one, but usually I have to spread it out over three or four days in small segments. The horrible irony is that I half-assedly watch my segmented rental DVD's in this elaborate and fantastic movie theater in our basement I spent a lot of money and years of effort on. Now it serves mostly as high-tech romper room for toddlers to watch Elmo and Oscar and Big Bird. Seriously, what the hell happened? I had a lifestyle at one point.

Saturday I rented three movies. I've already seen them all! AND- not one singing puppet in any of them. As a bonus, two of the three were damn fine pieces of grown-up entertainment. One was a piece of shit (Domino), but on a certain level I enjoyed it anyway, because that was freedom shit I was watching.

Speaking of testicle abuse like I was before, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is highly enjoyable, even the ball shocking torture bit. I may be sort of desensitized to that though.

Tags: Kids Good Times T.V. Movies

We go on vacation this coming Saturday! Whoop! That means that there will be a work related disaster that will happen about 3:30 on Thursday. Awesome! Can't wait!

Our Destination: Same place as always- the starkly beautiful and increasingly pricey Outer Banks of North Carolina. Thing about the OBX though- sure, rentals cost kind of a lot, but there's not much else to do there except hang around. So it's not like you're going to spend a fortune after you get there, by the time you get to your rental house or whatever you've already spent 90% of the money you're going to on your vacation. It's a terrific place. Maybe I'll get all poetic about it in a future entry, but I still have a week of The Suck to go first, so I don't want to get all wrapped up in it just yet.

I will tell you this though- we are yuppie scum. Like, more so than before. We did something I swore I wouldn't do and bought a friggin' DVD player for my car. Two screens, the works. I've even got the sound running through my car stereo, so it's BOOMY! and DYNAMIC! in there like a movie theater. All so my kids can watch Blue's Clues and Laurie Berkner videos on our road trip. God DAMN I'm gonna have spoiled kids. Growing up I was lucky to have a spot in the car with a seat belt when we went places. No lie- I rode in the back of my folk's old Ford Pinto (the station wagon, not the hatch back) with the dog to New York one time because she used to get anxious in the car and somebody needed to rub her ears so she wouldn't bark until she threw up. Good times! Actually- those really were good times. I'm not just saying "Good times!" when the times were clearly not good for hilarious comedy like usual. Anyway, I'm just a set of those stupid giant spinning rims away from rolling like those hip-hop rapper superstar type people you folks are so fond of, like Hammer-Time or the guy who did "Who Let The Dogs Out? WHO?--WHO WHO WHO?" I don't know why you like that song so much, it's totally gay. Everybody hates it when you put that CD in at all our parties.

There's links for some people over there on the right. I totally read all these blogs all the time, like constantly. That's why it takes me so long to post things here, because I'm so busy reading all these other blogs. Naked*.

Oh- and HA! I have some funny new family style drama to post about later. And it will be later, 'cause I got to GO.

Tags: Good Times Travel Kids T.V.

I'm trying out this new public beta of the program I make my sites with, RapidWeaver. I'm going to make this entry, save it, and hope nothing explodes. In case something explodes, tell my wife and kids I love them, okay? Promise me!

Yesterday I was going to take advantage of the holiday off by trying to get a freelance project or two done. I have four deadlines this week! Eek! Eek! Instead of doing that, however, I ended up renting a big plumber's snake (or "drain router" as they're calling them these days) to clear the clog in our outside plumbing which was causing the five inch deep lake to form in our driveway and garage after the deluge that came down the night before. At the time I was major league grade-A pissed off that I had to do this (homeownership is a bitch), and I'd be way more upset about this turn of events right now if I hadn't gone and fixed that stuck drain! FUCKIN' A RIGHT I FIXED IT!!! These things hardly ever work, but after a couple hours of me jamming and twisting this electric rotating springy coil down one drain hole after another until it grabbed something it could chew, suddenly there was success! My garage and driveway flushed like a damn toilet! FLOOOOSH! Hundreds of gallons of water came blowing through the pipes at ludicrous speed. I was running around and screaming like I just ripped a gamewinner in the sixty-first minute or whatever soccer terms you want to insert! I was coated in sewage- heck, I probably still am, but who cares? Not me! I fixed the drain!

When I returned my rental, there were a couple guys pulling up to the Home Depot at the same time I was to return their rented snake. One of them, a really beefy handy-looking type, saw I was bringing back my snake and asked, "Did you get it?"

I said, "Hell yeah I got it! I'm a BAD MAN. You get yours?"

He said, "Nope." and looked sad.

I said, "Aw man, sorry to hear that." I thought, "SUCKER!"

Tags: Good Times IGNORE ME! Internet Computer What? The Home Front

Today I'm attempting to be a beeter (I mean "BETTER" that was a funny typo though) friend. Or maybe a beeter friend, I guess that remains to be seen. I attempted to e-mail a guy who was my best pal in college at the last e-mail addy I had for him. No surprise that didn't work, the last e-mails we traded were 6 years ago. Whoops! I think I might try to see if he's current in the alumni records. Wonder what he's up to. FACT: This guy had magic powers with women of which he either was completely unaware or just never wanted to use to his advantage. Maybe he was afraid of going to the Dark Side. Whatever, he was the only guy I ever met who could walk into any bar in town, do NOTHING, and strange hot women would buy him drinks. This was unheard of, especially in a college town. Maybe in sad middle age divorcee bars that sort of thing happens all the time, but in college? I knew so many hot girls in school who went uptown all the time with absolutely no money and come home hours later hammered on all the booze bought by horny dudes or comped by bartenders, but this never works the other way where girls buy beers for guys, it's a rule. Girls don't have to buy guys drinks. But I saw John pull free beer many times just by standing around. It was amazing. We always thought he had some sort of mutant abilities. Not on me though, we were roommates for a whole year and I didn't try to seduce him even once that I remember. We drank a lot back then though, so I guess anything is possible. NO! NOT POSSIBLE.

Also today I registered another domain name. It will eventually supplant mayhems.com as my professional contact URL, if I can figure out some key redirects it may change soon. The new name is "bitmatt.com" . Short, digital-ish, easy to remember- I think it's a winner!

Tags: What? Pals I Am Professional Good Times Bitmatt

We're runnin' her a little thin here, folks- low to the ground, sputtering; we'll get as much distance in as we can before we have to ditch. Just hope we're not over a mountain range or someshit- a nice water landing is what we need. Someplace nice with a pretty beach. And little grass skirts on little native ladies. Beer. Ooh- DOUGHNUTS. I'd smite all of you for a doughnut. Or pizza- thick pizza. Thick as your arm. I like a thin pizza, but I want Court Street Bakery pizza. I wonder if that place is still there? In Athens (Ohio) I mean, they would close on weekends at one in the afternoon, but then they opened back up at midnight with giant sheets of gloriously gooey pizza for a buck a slice. Lines would form outside the door and wind down the sidewalk. Totally worth the wait, it was magic like Christmas Morning except with more cheese and less fake surprise. I would check on the internet for Court Street Bakery's current status, but I sort of don't want to know. If it's gone, I'll be sad, but if it's still there I'll probably also be sad because I doubt they deliver and certainly not to Cleveland within the next five minutes. Was I just talking about crashing a plane? What the hell was that?

I finished up things a little early last night (before 1 a.m.!) so I worked on the mayhems.com site a little. I didn't really add anything, but I made places TO add things. Potential and faux progress! That is perfectly fitting. Unlike these shorts, but I keep wearing 'em, they're old friends.

The keys of my laptop keyboard look like Scrabble squares, except black. They're not concave curvy and sculpted like regular keyboard keys, they're flat. I'm looking at triple word scores like you would not believe. NUM LOCK F6. What's that worth? 5?

Finally it looks like my brother-in-law Nick might have a break in getting full (or at least primary) custody of his daughter from Hallie, that psychotic (just my opinion, not calling names) he banged a few years ago, which is a whole THING just like everything else in my wife's family. The constant drama over there would make Tennessee Williams shake his head in disbelief were he not dead and whatnot. (Did you know he choked to death on a bottlecap? I didn't. How 'bout that?) I try not to get involved 'cause I like it quiet and boring, but the drama is so dense it creates it's own gravity and you just get sucked in. Anyway, I won't backtrack too much because I could type a modern epic here. I'll give you the amazingly out-of-context compendium special edition, the Shock and Awe version. I can do it in one possibly run-on sentence.

Hallie admitted that her mother, Mary, the grandmother who has made it her mission to ruin Nick's life as well as the lives of everyone in his family (and been fairly successful to this point, you'd be amazed what regular calls to various civic agencies by someone who hates you and has lots of free time will do), has been using dolls to teach the daughter, a three year old girl, what penises and vaginas are for in an attempt to brainwash the girl into reporting to authorities that her daddy has been raping her.

There you go! One sentence! Shock-ing and Awe-ful enough? I'm standing on an aircraft carrier in front of my "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner, waving to the international media assembled. Thanks, everybody- we've got those terrorists on the run now, boy! YEEE-HAAWWWW! I've got a flight suit!

Not funny, I know. Sorry. I try not to bring down the room here at Cranky Matty, but my mind keeps coming back to this.


Today's only Tuesday?!? You've GOT to be kidding.

Tags: Good Times Family Drama I Am Professional Lunch

I had two fill out TWO FUCKING FORMS to buy Sudafed yesterday. Look here, dickheads- I have sinus issues. The only thing that helps is Sudafed. I'm not going to go home and make a big tub of crystal meth with my two tiny 24 tablet boxes, okay? So you can take these forms and stick them right up your- WAIT. What are you telling me here? That maybe I should skip the middle man and just buy some crystal meth? Is that stuff good for sinus headaches? Because I could run out and buy like four pounds of that without having to fill out any forms whatsoever RIGHT NOW.

Enough haughty sarcasm. I [heart] Sudafed Sinus Headache! I'm telling you people- the BEST buzz ever. I bust balls, but I would gladly fill out three, maybe FOUR forms for my Precious. Every winter I forget just how sweet The Precioussss is, because all the filthy weeds and trees and grassessss are DEAD my Preciouss. But then in the Spring they come back, don't they? WE HATESESS the GREEENNSS my PRECIOUSSS!!!

Ahh crap. Gollum jokes are just not funny anymore. Like they were before, right? Well, okay- for nerds- HILARIOUS. I'll give you that!










My Precious.


HAHAHAHA Funny again! Oh, that Tolkien.

Tags: What? Good Times

That's right, the big THREE-FOUR today (yesterday now!). Woooo>hack-hack WHEEZE!

Nothing really good happened today (yesterday*). Oh! Except that I got audited by the IRS and it seems I owe them a little over a thousand bucks from 2004! Hooray! It appears that my tax guy (stares at Beth who's dad is my tax guy) maybe forgot to include one of my 1099's on my return. OOPS! I have to get with him & straighten stuff out, but that certainly was good B-day news! I'm not gonna cry about it or anything, if it is indeed a mistake I'll just pony up the cash, it's not like I was not going to pay my taxes or anything edgy and anarchic like that. The government seems to realize it was just a mix-up, there isn't any penalty or anything. No harm no foul, except, y'know, the grand I have to drop to finance the military industrial complex. Oh well, Becky made cupcakes! Yellow ones with chocolate frosting. Mm-MMM.

Quick obligatory homer sporting reference- CAVS & TRIBE RULE... everyone else can suck it.

Real life conversation between me & my brother at work, where we have a lot of time to talk about the most god-damned retarded things:

Z: "Who do you think is hotter, LeBron James or Grady Sizemore?"

M: "Hmm. Well, if it's just for looking at, I say Grady. He's like a perfect angel I want to set on a shelf and stare at for a thousand years. BUT- if it's sex we're talking about- LeBron, hands down. Ooh! He'd just rip you up.

And then I made the same Mm-MMM sound that I had just made when we were talking about IRS audits and cupcakes a little while ago.




* Babies won't even let me finish an O.P. entry on my birthday.

Tags: Good Times Sports What?

This morning my boss was cleaning out the conference room at work, which normally is loaded with the chaotic spillover from his office. "Must be a loan tour today," I predicted in my head. Sure enough, the suits from some bank that we don't yet owe prodigious piles of money to arrived a little later. That's the only reason the conference room ever gets cleaned, when we're begging for money. My boss did his usual hourlong meet-n-greet with the sly presentation of the dubious financials right before he whisked the well dressed man and woman out for the facility tour.

"And here we have the engraving area where we blah blah for whatsis and the other place. that's our really expensive router table that is controlled by that computer over there. I don't think we've ever turned it on but it does fabulous work. There's Arnold who is our shop manager, don't mind the wife-beater and shorts in February, he dresses for comfort. His, not ours. HA HA! Now we move on to the art department, they use these computers you may have heard of - Macintosh Apples, and they do some amazingly wonderful things. Here's Matt our resident genius and lead designer, I'm not really sure what he does most of the time, but he's the best. I think he's taking pictures of something now because that's our digital camera he's got there. Oh and lights! He uses lights when he takes pictures, I've seen him do it. And this picture will be put in the computer, right Matt? Yes- I thought so. Anyway, moving on to the paint area, where you may have guessed we paint things like blahhdy-bloo bloo and waddle waddle dee doo..."

This goes on for another hour or so. He takes these folks in their nice suits through the building, describing every piece of equipment and what it does, introducing all the employees, cracking his little jokes. It's pretty much the same song and dance as usual, he's got it down to a science. He'll get that loan if he has to talk these people's ears off for the rest of the day. They'll cave, they always do. I've been here twelve years and Ted has never not gotten the loan. At the end of the tour he keeps schmoozing even as the suits edge closer to the door. Four or five sets of handshakes later and a "we'll go over the numbers and let you know in the next 24 hours," the bank folks finally leave.

I always imagine the first minute or two is silence as the bank people pull out of our mud-and-cinder parking lot on their way back to the home office. The quiet is nice after the nattering of my boss over the clamor of air compressors and printing presses. But eventually, one will look over at the other, swallow hard, and say, "WHAT A DUMP!" At which point the other says, "OH MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT SMELL?" "I DON'T KNOW BUT I NEED A SHOWER SO BAD." "I'VE HAD TO GO TO THE BATHROOM FOR THE LAST HOUR BUT I WASN'T GOING TO GO THERE!" "OH I KNOW- I THINK SOMEBODY TOOK A SHIT IN THE KITCHEN!" "THE SINK? I SAW THAT TOO!"

Do they talk about the impressive and informative tour they just took? The nice people they just met, or the fine work we're doing with the equipment at our disposal? No. They're talking about the shit someone may or may not have taken in a sink. Jerks.

Tags: I Am Professional Good Times What?

Tonight during 24 I saw the new ad for the Nissan XTerra. They're using "Set You Free" by local band (well, Akron, that's close enough) The Black Keys for the background music. Nice!

Quick Black Keys story- the band is comprised of two regulars, the singer/guitarist and the drummer, who is the gangliest motherfucker ever. That freak can play the hell out of some drums, so more power. Anyway, the guitar guy is sort of average looking, nothing special. Before they got signed he'd been dating his high school sweetheart for several years. After signing some record deal and a European tour later, he comes back with a Dutch (French? Whatever) lingerie model. My brother-in-law, who used to fix guitars for them, asked him what was up with that? He said, "Dude- I'm famous in Europe!"

Tags: Tunes T.V. Good Times

That's the gist I got out of that last night. And everybody on the planet will experience LIBERTY! Of course, it will be the sort of liberty that will be determined by their own individual cultures and histories; but it'll be US THAT GIVES IT TO 'EM! YYEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAWWW!!!! Gonna fill some third world troughs with Freedom grown right here in Heartland, U.S.A.!!!! Gonna push their heads in those troughs and make 'em eat! Bend over and Eat our Freedom! The oppressed people want the hot Freedom Seed our Big Freedom Pipes will thrust deep into their infrastructure to provide with NUCULAR FORCE. Their Freedom Lust grows every day! Look at the way they dress- tattered rags barely covering their tyrannized brown bodies. They're totally asking for it!

I'm not a megalomaniac!

Tags: What? Politics Good Times

I had a single minded, heart-aching crush on Amanda Pays in her Max Headroom days. I spent much of a summer at art school holed up in the library scouring fashion magazines for pictures of her which I would tear out and defile myself with animal aggression to later. I could not help myself, she drove me to absolute distraction by merely being alive. I only tell you this because I feel that Amanda Pays stands up very well to this day as a high quality object of hopeless teenage fanboy desire- beautiful and brainy, a female in control of any situation, a woman who demanded attention from her presence alone. Not at all like, say, Heather Thomas circa "The Fall Guy", for whom I rubbed myself raw for just because she had great cans. No way- Amanda was the whole package, the voice, the eyes, the accent, that thing that hot British girls do when they want to laugh at something but instead smile demurely as if to say, "I'll laugh at your jokes, but first you've got to earn it, boy." I suppose it cheapens this tribute to also mention that she had amazing, teenage-boy's-life-changing knockers. Wow. Wow.

Amanda Pays is now 46, has been married to Corbin Bernsen since 1988, and has four kids. I'm glad for her.

Tags: What? Pictures Good Times Pretty Girls

They were like a silent army of stinky ninja assassins lurking around this town, owning the night for the first seven years we lived here. Every single night reeked of foul skunk ass in the neighborhood. Couldn't let the dog out after dark without first inspecting the yard with a flashlight for malodorous critters with malice on their minds. This year? No skunks. Not just less- none! What the hell happened? Can't say I really miss them, but maybe I should feel bad for them. I fear there was some sort of skunk holocaust, but nobody talks about it because we all like to be able to go outside at night and let our pets out in the yard. I might be sharing the guilt of some horrible crime against nature by my silence! I will be silent NO MORE!

Or maybe I'll keep my yap shut, I haven't decided.

Tags: What? Good Times The Home Front

Here I set this thing up with the full intention of flooding the market with daily updates, and then the world went all kablooie on me and shit needed done. Who gets the call when shit needs done? Me, that's who. I carry the shit doing stick, which is what God used to dig canyons and stuff like that. "Shit Doing Stick" is the lamest name ever for any tool, but it was named by the Almighty, and who am I to mess with that? He'd be the first to admit He isn't good with making up names for things.

Okay, enough of that. I'm here to today to talk about Journey, which (for you children out there) was a very famous rock band (a so-called "supergroup"!) back in the late 70's through the mid 80's. They did some stuff after that which was all horrible, so people my age pretty much just pretend the band died in a plane crash somewhere outside Topeka in 1986. These guys were so frickin' huge they even had their own Atari game in '82 called "Journey Escape", perhaps the lamest Atari 2600 title ever produced. That's really saying something, especially if you were one of those suckers who shelled out 50 bucks for the E.T. game.

Anyway, I don't want you to think I'm some huge Journey fan. I appreciate bigtime their '80's cheese factor, which is completely unparalleled. I was one of the seemingly billions of people who bought the Journey Greatest Hits CD when I was in high school, which like several notable greatest hits collections* didn't actually contain their only good songs. (Note: the following contains iTunes links) Those songs, of course, are "Stone in Love" and the classic 2 song arc, "Feeling That Way/Anytime". Even with these glaring omissions, this CD is one of the biggest selling disks of all time, and from royalties alone Steve Perry is able to swim naked in piles of money every morning like Scrooge McDuck (which always bothered me- wouldn't he get some sort of metal poisoning from always being immersed in filthy gold coins?).

But here's the thing, see- I have this joke. It's my big running gag, the one that I have had going for fifteen years. The one I will see pass on into perpetuity through my progeny. Journey gets played a lot on the radio, even to this day. Tune into any adult contemporary or lite rock station & you're bound to hear some shitty Journey song sooner or later. 80's Flashback Weekend? You better BELIEVE there will be Journey. Don't stop believin'! (TEE-HEE thud)

Whenever this happens, be it in the car or at work or during some lame wedding reception, when any Journey song starts playing I turn to whoever I'm nearest- friend, wife, stranger, random hitchhiker, grocery store clerk; doesn't matter; and I say, "It's about time they played something good."

I don't care if we've been listening to the voice of God doing spoken word poetry being backed by a chorus of angels all day- if "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" comes on I'm saying to somebody in a loud voice, "It's about time they played something good."

Look, this may not seem funny to you, but that's just 'cause you haven't heard me do it like a thousand times. Trust me, over the course of a lifetime, by the 800th or so instance I look over at you and say "It's about time they played something good." when that shitty piano heralds the beginning of "Open Arms" you'll laugh your ass off. Or you'll roll your eyes while I laugh my ass off. Whatever.

But the first time I hear lil' Tyler or tiny Casey say, "It's about time they played something good," when we hit a Journey classic on the iPod will be the proudest moment of my entire life. My heart will grow two sizes that day, I swear.



*I'm looking right at you, Cars Greatest Hits. No "Bye Bye Love"? No "Moving in Stereo"? "Cars Greatest Hits" my fucking ass.

Tags: What? Tunes Good Times Kids

A couple months ago I'm driving downtown to my in-laws to drop off the kids before I put in some face time at work. It was probably around 10:30 in the morning or so. I decided to drive up to an ATM so I could buy cheeseburgers later, and there was one sort of on my way to the freeway. There was a short line of cars, so we waited.

This lady walking by in the parking lot starts staring at my car. Like most everybody in that area of town she was black, but unlike most of the residents of Euclid on "that side of I-90" she was dressed very nicely in a professional looking suit, made up, looked like she took care of herself. Probably about 40, maybe 45. She looks my car over real slow, like something bad might happen if she takes her eyes off. She wandered closer, and after it was obvious she wasn't going away, I rolled down the window, which startled her, and asked if there was something I could help her with.

"That's a real sharp car," talking about the silver Element my kids made me buy. "Real sharp. What year is it?"

"Thanks- it's a 2004."

"Uhh-huh." She said "Uhh-huh" with a weird nod of her head and a knowing grin, like she didn't believe me. Why I would lie about the year my car was made, I'm not sure. Anyway, obviously not satisfied with my answer, she glanced around nervously like she was looking for an exit, which was also weird because she was, y'know, outside.

"How long have you been at this office? Did they just transfer you in?"

Now I was confused. "Umm... what?"

The well dressed lady stepped a little closer, looked me dead in the eye and said, "You know Scott Carpenter?"

"Uh- I don't know any..."

"Scott Carpenter- at the F.B.I.? You working with him now?"

It took me this long to realize I was talking to a crazy person. Maybe it was the midday hour that threw me off, or perhaps the professional dress. I mean, usually these folks are a lot easier to pick out, what with the teeth gnashing and withering B.O. and whatnot. "Lady, I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

"Uh-huh," nervous glance to the back of my car where the babies are, "riiight."

Then she took off running like I was about to jump out of the car and take her down or something. Which I totally wasn't.

Let's all remember to take our meds, people.


This has been a public service announcement.

Tags: Kids Good Times What?

This isn’t even a cute picture. Okay, a little maybe- but they’ve taken better. They haven’t displayed any of the unfortunate goony looking head problems that have plagued their daddy. But I’m still playing with this computer stuff and this Xmas pic was handy. I must tell you- I am really liking this Apple iWeb a whole lot*- I may ask it to the prom! WAIT- no- everyone I asked to the prom thought I was kidding. “Tee-hee... Matt, you’re so crazy!” and then went and had sex with the soccer team in the school’s groundskeeping shed while I watched MTV all night with my also dateless loser friends and a bucket of ham salad. And bagel chips! Mmm-MM!

Is iWeb as good as bagel chips and ham salad? You bet! But add a little Billy Idol “Cradle of Love” video repeated ten times through the evening and you have quite a race. I don’t know who wins, but I think we all know who the loser is.


*Edit: not no more! This was the one entry I made in iWeb before I went to RapidWeaver. When Apple gets it all together I may switch back.

Tags: What? Kids Pictures Good Times