I Aspire To Be More In Two Thousand One Four

That really is a blanket statement isn’t it? Of course we all want to be better. For ourselves, for our families, for our cult leaders … we all want to improve. Most people wait until AFTER the New Near to make their resolutions. Since I know that I am not going to keep any of them, I figure that now is as good a time as any. If nothing else it gives me something to do until Christmas Eve dinner.

I would love to say that I have grand plans for things in the coming year. I don’t. I pretty much want to stay employed and out of jail, preferably in that order. However, since it is “the thing” to do at the end of the year, here are some goals for next year. These are in no particular order of importance, just as I came up with them.

1. Lose another 20 pounds – I think I can do this. It will require me to do a little more than the grip things from yesterday’s post, but it will be worth it. I will once again be in shape to participate in the RHPS. Break out those fish nets.
2. Blog more often – This one is tough. I seem to have a lot of people reading this blog … well, they are subscribed to it. I would actually like to give them something to read once in a while. I also would like that content to be entertaining in some way. Write AND be entertaining. Asking a lot of myself.
3. Remember which cookie recipes worked this year for next year – Every year I seem to pick the ones I didn’t like or forget what I did right. Next year … will be different.
4. Start using my Muppet more – I am going to let you just stew on that one.
5. Update my blog – This isn’t something that has to be a major overhaul. I just need to update old links, remove dead links and just make it look like I actually look at the site once in a while.
6. Read a book, or 2 – I have some books at home. I have some books on my wife’s Kindle. I am lazy. Yes, I have become too lazy to read.
7. Find my kids jobs – I am only half joking on this. They want to go to day care, then they need to start earning their way.
8. Take a “me” weekend and have a movie marathon – Not sure if I want to go good movies or bad. I am thinking do an actor themed set but then what actor do I pick? Segal? Hopkins? Flynn? Jay-Z? The choices are endless.
9. Clean the basement – Not a real lofty goal but something that needs to be done. The kids will very soon need a larger area for a play room and I will be damned if I am going to pay for “open gym” and put up with awkward play dates.
10. Paint the house – Or rather, have it painted. We have lived there almost 7 years now. The outside needs to be painted and the inside needs it bad. Maybe I can turn each room one by one into a playroom and have the kids paint them for me.

 

Have a great Christmas everyone. If you don’t celebrate Christmas … then don’t have a great Christmas.

 

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I’m Too Out Of Touch To Get In Shape

I’ve been doing my best to lose weight the last 8 months. I was doing great. Then Halloween came along with candy. Then Thanksgiving came along with food. Now, Christmas is here with cookies. Cookies are the main recruitment tool of Satan himself. Due to all these things that I blame … my weight has plateaud.  Maybe even gained a pound or two … or 5.

I have come to the realization that I have to start exercising. I remember vaguely how to do that. I remember running, lifting weights, a few other tortures from my track days. I also vividly remember how much I hated exercising.  I pretty much still hate it. I know that I will not do it if I am left to my own devices, so I decided to look at some of the options out there. What I found is that there are apparently no classes for exercise. There are apparently a number of comic book sound effects classes at every park district and health club in the area.

Doesn’t anyone just exercise anymore? I see things for Shabam, Zumba, Pump and Spin. I can pound my Pilates and and soulcycle until my Flywheel falls off. I can be insane while I rip myself for 30 (30 what I am not sure) or I can pee 90 times a day to get in shape. I can box my Pilates instructor while I am doing yoga in outer space.  Of course I can also prance my way fit or even act out that porn novel about Grey’s anatomy. (yes, there is a workout for that book) I can pretend I am a stripper or I can volunteer to film the sequel to Death Race.

All I want to do is exercise. So, I bought myself some of those hand grip spring things. I will have a six pack in no time.

 

The Worst Of The Best Of The Worst Lists Of … Oh Whatever

Once again the geniuses at VIMB have decided to be totally innovative and do absolutely nothing different from anyone else. In fact, we may even be duplicating things we have done in the past. We are really just too lazy to go back and look. (and we wonder why we won’t get hired by Cracked.com.)

While I was at work watching Christmas Vacation today, I began to think of all of the Christmas specials that have been made. I also thought about the ones that should not have been made in that list. I then thought that perhaps I should be working instead of all this thinking. In any case, I thought it would be fun to go back and do some more tribute to Letterman and some top 10 listage for the holidays. So, from the home office in Shitterton, Dorset, England:

The top 10 worst ideas I could think of for Christmas specials at 10 o’clock at night

10. I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas: Starring Megyn Kelly and George Zimmerman

9. The Tea Party Saves Santa

8. Justin Bieber and the Brazilian National Choir Sing Mannheim Steamroller’s Greatest Hits

7. Kanye’s Holiday Salute To The Troops

6. Santa’s Celebrity Sober House: Starring Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes, Charlie Sheen and Lamar Odom. With special guest Chris Brown as “the enforcer”.

5. Thamsanqa Jantjie: A Sign Language Holiday Sing-A-Long

4. My Favorite Holiday Cakes With David Mazzie

3. 101 Ways To Kill A Shelf Elf

2. Reindeer Dynasty

And the #1 worst idea I could think of for a Christmas special at 10 o’clock at night …

1. Star Wars Holiday Special

I Need Better Virus Protection

This week, the voices have been one by one succumbing to the dreaded Norovirus.  For those of you without children, and those of you newly with children who have not yet experienced the wonderfulness of this particular ailment … it ain’t fun.

Basically, it is 1-2 days of sheer unpleasantness. If you are lucky, it only affects one hemisphere. If you are unlucky, it affects both. It is quite vicious as well. It dehydrates you pretty good. Problem is, you can’t keep anything down for the first half of it. I felt worse than I ever have from any food poisoning and almost as bad as when I had the flu a few years back.

If you are fortunate to have a little one with this … no, you just have to learn for yourself. I will say though be VERY mindful of dehydration. My niece had to go to the hospital when she had this some years ago.

That’s about all I wanted to say. I had to get this out there because I feel like crap after 2 days of a 2-3 day virus. No one is immune. Resistance is futile. And if 1 person in your house gets it … you all will.

Happy holidays!

 

Just as a reminder, this is not “the flu” Flu is a respiratory ailment that has nothing to do with puking or the squirts. You won’t get over the flu in 2 -3 days. You will be hurtin’ for 2-3 weeks. Just sayin’. I used to make the same generalization all the time until I myself had the flu. Never made that mistake again.

 

Santa Clause Came To The Mall

Actually, I think his name was Phil. Tori had her picture taken with Santa last week at school. She smiled and it was one of the best pictures she ever took. It was a rushed affair though, so she was sad that she wasn’t able to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas. Because of this, and because I needed a bribe earlier in the week while Jackie was out of town, I told Tori that we could go see Santa this weekend at the mall.

There were other reasons we needed to go to the mall. Since I have lost so much weight lately, I needed to get my wedding ring re-sized before going to Vegas in January. We also needed to go see Santa so that Dude could get his picture taken since he wasn’t at school that day. Anyhoo … if you haven’t heard, or don’t live around here, it was snowing today. Now, I am in the NW burbs of Chicago. It isn’t like we don’t get snow. However, whenever the first significant snow falls, the only people on the road seem to be recent transplants from any state that never has snow. If you don’t know how to drive in snow, I don’t think les of you … JUST DON’T DRIVE IN THE DAMN SNOW!

The up side of the unexpected levels of snow is that the mall wasn’t that crowded and the line for the big man wasn’t that long. Granted, the mall we were at I don’t think is EVER really that crowded but it IS Christmas time. You couldn’t tell that the line for Santa wasn’t long though. We got there while he was on break so there were upwards of 15-20 people in line. That is including kids. So, 10 adults maybe? This required 3 mall security personnel. They all looked very serious. I am not sure what they thought was going to happen. A riot maybe? The guy on the Segway got out of there after they controlled the line.

The line went pretty quickly. Tori was so excited when it was our turn that she barely waited for mommy to talk to the lady doing the pictures that we were going to do our own pictures and just using Santa for our free backdrop. Tori ran up to Santa and as she was climbing up onto the bench, said “Santa … I want a … a … a … art easel for Christmas!” There was no way she was going to miss out on it this time. Especially after putting up with that damn elf every day.

Alex cried. And cried. And reached for mommy. And cried. The picture was kinda cute though that they took. Tori was the Nero of the Santa pics. She smiled and laughed as Dude man cried. It really is kind of a great picture.

After the pictures were done, Tori got down off of the bench as me and Mrs. Voices when tot look at the pictures on the screen. What we didn’t see was Tori going over to the stack of oversized prop presents and picking them up and shaking them. She was just about to start unwrapping one when I finally saw her and stopped her. She thought she was in trouble and started crying. Dude started crying again because his big sister was crying. I told her she could ride the mall train. It cost me $12 to get her to stop crying.

While we were waiting for the train to get done dealing with a birthday party, Tori decided to take in the sights of the mall. She was fascinated … with everything. She thought it was the best thing ever. Like the last time she was at a mall. If I ever take this kid to someplace like Mall of America, she may overload and her head might explode. I would include a picture of the cute picture … but it is in my car. It is 10:30. I don’t want to go back out in the cold to get.

 

The Elf On The Shelf: A Creepy Christmas Pain In The Ass

Normally, I don’t cave in to following what everyone else is doing. I especially wasn’t going to do this silly elf thing when I saw that it cost $30 for a 10 inch doll. I know that Tori would think is was a super fun thing so I started looking for a generic elf. I figured I don’t need an “official” elf. I really with I could have found a Hermey the dentist elf that was big enough, but to no avail.

My sister found that they had an “Elf on the Shelf” at Costco for only $12. Turns out is doesn’t have a plastic face (it is a full plush doll), and comes with an ‘activity book’ instead of the story of the elf on the shelf. On the plus side, the elf we have isn’t quite as creepy as the normal one. It was also only $12 instead of $30. On the minus side, the only thing I know of the story is what I have picked up on the street, and the streets I tend to hang out on, may not be supplying me with the proper information on this phenomenon.

What I do know, is that the elf is supposed to move to a different location every night. At first I thought it was because he just went out partying after everyone was asleep and he was so drunk when he got home that he forgot where he was supposed to be. I was corrected on that point. I thought the reporting back to Santa angle was clever and would help me get Tori to behave more. She just cries when I tell her the elf is going to rat her out to the big guy.

I also didn’t know until a couple of days after we started this craziness that we were supposed to name it. I told Tori this and she did give him a pretty kick ass name. The Blackhawks were playing that night and so she named it after 2 of “Her Blackwawks”. It’s name is now officially Toews the candy Kaner elf.

I did a little research to find out what other people have done with this thing. I found out there are websites, complete blogs, Pintrest pages and who knows what else out there on this. Really? People buy clothes for the damn things? IT’S A DOLL! Sorry, I digress. I didn’t think I was going to have to be THAT creative. I just thought I would have to move it a few inches every night to psych out the kids and make them think that he it was really leaving every night.

I did find one site of pictures that has it doing al kinds of raunchy things but, I don’t need to pay for child therapy quite yet. They are going to need it soon enough with me as a father so … don’t need to push it.

What is the point of all this you ask? As always, I have no point. I just need to get it out there and silence the voices. I have less than 20 more places to find for this thing to go.  I am hoping Tori will forget all the places and I will be able to duplicate some. I doubt it. Mostly, I am realizing what a pain this thing will be. Maybe I cam talk Mrs. Voices into being the keeper of the creep.

Might as well show him doing … whatever a … shelf … elf … does?

Bigger than a Bumble

It Was The “Best Of” Times … It Was The “Worst Of” Times

December, that time of the year where everyone and their blogging brother comes up with a ‘best of’ and ‘worst of’ list for the year. Quite frankly, my life isn’t adventurous enough to have experienced enough things to have had best/worst of each. Most everything has been pretty middle of the road. That would make a boring list however. So, in keeping with the spirit of the season, over the next couple of weeks, I will come up with some lists that will hopefully entertain and drive enough traffic to please my sponsors. Today’s installment:

My best and worst naps of 2013

Best

Feb 12^th – 2:37 p.m. – Was a particularly slow day at work. Went to my car, 49 min of bliss

July 8^th – 4:26 p.m. – We were on I-90 in Ohio somewhere between Cleveland and Ashtabula. I think I dozed off for a bit since I can’t remember about 14 miles of driving.

April 23^rd – 8:19 p.m. – Was watching a review and trailer for After Earth

Nov 6^th – Whatever time the CMAs were on – The CMAs were on.

Dec 5^th – 7:00 pm – Sound of Music LIVE was on

 Worst

Most other naps. Too many to list.

 

I just looked at my blog page. Guess I should do that more often. It is not 2011 anymore and the pictures of Tori are 3 years old. I will get on that soon.

My Soapbox Is Slippery When Wet

Probably because I use liquid detergent. I heard on the radio this morning a couple of things that I usually wouldn’t post about. They both involve politics of one sort or the other. I will admit that I don’t follow the full details of some of these things so I will say right now … I know I am NOT an expert and I am NOT speaking with knowledge of all the facts … probably not even most of the facts

First thing is about the pensions “reform” in my home state of Illinois. A new boll was signed into law today that will do something with the pension system that unions in particular are not fond of. That is all well and good. Like I said, I don’t know the facts so I am not sure what is being decreased, increased, taken away etc. The argument I keep hearing though is that the law is unconstitutional.  I am unclear exactly what is unconstitutional, and how pensions are part of the constitution in the first place for any changes to be un.

GOAL!!!!

Sorry, the Hawks are on while I am typing this.

As I was saying, is it a constitutional right that we get pensions or is it something about the changes themselves that are violating a constitutional law? I don’t think pensions are an inalienable right.

The second thing I heard was a discussion about the minimum wage protests. I am not against a minimum wage increase. I don’t think the people talking on the radio were either … in principle. The gist of it was this. Yes, there should be a minimum wage increase however, it can’t just be “hey, you used to make $7 now you make $15.  Here is why.

1)   The money will have to come from somewhere. That will mean price increases and no more dollar menu.

2)   If the lowest paid worker gets a 100% increase in wage. (I am just using round numbers because I suck at math) then the more skilled worker will think, “wait a minute, if they get more money, and I am more important to the operation of this company, then I want a doubling of salary.

3)   It isn’t a guarantee, it is called “earnings”. I hate to say this and I know that there are people that have these jobs because they can’t help it or circumstances are whatever they are but … if you are doing something that pays that low and you don’t like it, then there are plenty of other people that would gladly take that job. Better yourself to get a better job.

Hate on me all you want for that last part but I am playing devil’s advocate here. Like I said, I agree the minimum wage is too low. You can’t live on what it is. But, like everything else in this country, no matter who wants it, people just want it to happen but nobody wants to pay for it. It would be real nice to just say “BAM! The minimum wage is higher!” Then the employers can say “BAM! Our prices are higher!!” Then the same people will again say “We can’t afford anything we need the minimum wage higher!” It will be an endless cycle.

I don’t have a solution. I don’t have all the facts. I am not a politician. I don’t have a raccoon in my bedroom. I’m just sayin’ is all.

Oh yeah, Abe Vigoda is still alive. God bless him.

The Prodigal Blogger Returns … But These Celebs Won’t

I am back. I have neglected even the most basic part of my blog. The pointless and sometimes creepy obsession with dead celebrities. As it has been MANY months since I have done my updates, (and I lost the list I was keeping of deadies) I will do the best I can to remember who died since September. YES! SEPTEMBER! I am such a “dead” beat.  While the reports of my death have not even surfaced, I will report on the deaths that I am sure everyone already knows about. I need to catch up so I can do my new year predictions soon with the death of this year.

 

September

Frederik Pohl – 93 – Sci-Fi writer – Sept. 2

Ariel Castro – 53 – Scum – Sept. 3

Cal Worthington – 92 – Crazy car dealer – Sept. 8

Ray Dolby – 80 – Yeah, THAT Dolby – Sept. 12

Jerry G. Bishop – 77 – Original Svengoolie – Sept. 15

 

October

Tom Clancy – 66 – Author; Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games – Oct. 1

Andy Pafko – 92 – Baseball Player Chicago Cubs – Oct. 8

Ed Lauter – 74 – Actor – Oct. 16

Jon Locke – 86 – Sleestack leader on original Land of the Lost – Oct. 19

Marcia Wallace – 70 – Mrs. Krabappel – Oct. 25

Lou Reed – 71 – Singer/songwriter –Oct. 27

Pete Haycock – 62 – Guitarist; Climax Blues Band – Oct. 30

 

November

Charlie Trotter – 54 – Chef – Nov. 5

Brian Griffin – 8 – Dog – Nov. 24

Paul Walker – 40 – Actor – Nov. 30

 

That pretty much wraps it up. It won’t be long before new deaths and new predictions bring us all together once again.