Booze

And another thing…

  • by Drew

I was talking about my disgusting back fat the other day and got onto South Beach. Now it’s stuck in my mind. We did South Beach almost a year ago. During the time we were following the plan pretty closely, I dropped about 30 pounds. And that carried through the holidays, so I was pretty happy about it. Since then I put about 10 pounds back on, but I’m still at like a -20 net, so…cool.

This time around though, especially with our basement currently full of wine and booze, I have been enjoying my evening cocktail quite a bit. Honestly, those first two weeks of the South Beach program, where you drop all alcohol along with the white bread and other junk, that’s sounding tough. I mean, I don’t think it’s time for a 12 step program or alcohol rehab or anything, but I have been making a lot of excuses, and the booze thing is definitely a contributing factor.

Anyway, I was always saving my institutional cherry for a nice drug treatment center after my rock opera did a three year run on Broadway, but my third major label release was summarily panned by the critics, but before my seminal ‘back-to-basics’ fifth album, self-produced and on most critics top-10 for the year lists…

Oh crap, did I write that or just think it?

Anyway, clearly none of this is in my future (or past or present) and I am destined to just be me, sans critical acclaim, so I think the Beverly Hills rehab is out. I’ll leave that to Britney. I’ll just forego my cocktails for a couple of weeks, try to melt some of the back bacon, and skip the liposuction. I’ll leave that to Britney as well.

Damn, she gets everything…rehab, lipo, K-fed. Some girls have all the luck.

Confessions

Back Bacon

  • by Drew

So we’re putting in a wood stove. I figure we can either pay the oil companies thousands of dollars to heat our home this winter, or we can take advantage of our three plus acres of trees – many already on the ground – to heat our home. Yeah, it costs some bucks to put in the stove, but I’d rather give that money to Tim the stove guy.

And here’s a tasty tidbit I picked up while stove shopping – did you know that a fallen tree rotting in the woods produces more noxious junk than if you burn it in a proper wood stove. Holy crap! Environmentally sound combustion! There’s got to be a flaming tree-hugger joke in here somewhere…but that wasn’t my point.

See, the best place for our super efficient wood stove is the corner where our highly inefficient wood burning fireplace was. I say was, because it’s gone. It was a corner fireplace. The fireplace and angled-off corner are now gone, replaced by a proper corner and a lovely bluestone stove pad. Demolition is awesome.

While removing the old fireplace and tearing down it’s surrounding wall to make room for the new stove, I had to work around the protruding chimney apparatus that will be removed and replaced. A few nights ago, as I was finishing up, I stood and scratched my back against the metal bracing. I got a nasty, long, scratch that made a bloody welt.

And damn, when I looked in the mirror I realized I am hiding a lot of freaking fat back there. Seriously, I need some good old 80’s style diet pills. I need to pull an Alex P. Keaton (on Family Ties – you remember that episode, right?). I had to ask Carol to put some antibiotic cream on there and I was seriously embarrassed. It’s more or less invisible until you bend just the right way. Someone tell me please, what is the best fat burner? I totally need some.

It’s time to do the South Beach thing again. I’m eating too many french fries lately. And drinking too much wine. But damn, I feel like I have a couple ham hocks over my ass. That just won’t do.

Life

Chatting at the wheel

  • by Drew

Let’s forget about Mothers Against Drunk Driving…how about Mothers against driving while phoning Seriously, I have had like 4 near miss accidents in the last week with people on their cell phones while driving. The scary thing is that half the time they don’t even know how close they came to an accident because they’re so busy chattering away.

One this morning would have really peeved me if it wasn’t so funny. On the way to work I was in a left only lane. There was a ton of traffic coming from the other direction and going straight. I had a long wait, but I know from experience that I will eventually get a green arrow and have an easy turn if there is no space in the oncoming rush. There was none.

Nevertheless, the woman behind me started laying on the horn after a few seconds of waiting. I can assure you, there was no way I could sneak through the cars from the opposite direction. It’s not like I let an opening go by because I knew I’d eventually get the arrow.

So I look in the rear view and see a 50-something woman in an Escalade. She is wearing sunglasses and looking out the passenger window, seemingly oblivious to the world around as she visibly gabs on her cell. At first I thought maybe it was another car, maybe I’m blaming the wrong person. Then, I see her lift her hand and press the horn, three long beeps. She never even looked up. She wasn’t even paying attention to see if I had gone. She was just gratuitously honking.

Am I taking crazy pills? First of all, if you must talk on a cell while driving, make it quick and do it safely. It’s not your living room – the license plates and seatbelts are a dead giveaway. Get yourself a Bluetooth headset and take care of business. You can pretend you’re at work. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Life

Come on, John – I thought you’d go for…

  • by Drew

Sarah Palin. Eeeek. As a male in his mid-30s, I can honestly say I’ve seen a lot less porn than most of my peers, and still – even I know that Sarah Palin has got the porn secretary look down. Or maybe it’s the Freshman English teacher getting blackmailed into going down on a student who found an old copy of that magazine (I needed the money!) under his Dad’s bed. One or the other. Either way, she’s taking her cues from porn.

And if you don’t think that resonates with 25-45 year old male conservative voters, you’ve never been to a trade show in Dallas or Atlanta or Scottsdale. It’s amazing what good family men will do when away from hearth and home and within taxi-proximity of a strip club.

Anyway, now that we are finally getting to the point where we can get the current criminal out of office, when his popularity is so low that the Dems should be able to win running a chimp against his potential successor, let us consider what happens if McCain actually wins. Right now, McCain is riding on the backs of scared old people, mega-Christians, gun nuts and the greedy wealthy. And he’s added a psycho Ann Coulter clone to his ticket – and we’ll get to some truths about the ersatz porno-VP in a sec. So, let me say this – if Obama and Biden cannot take this election in a landslide (remembering that they actually do have real political experience in DC, and have documented  their plans for changing things in the next four years) it suggests to me that this nation has two problems.

First, as a nation, we are not ready to elect a black man. If that’s true…well, get me out of here.

Second, the gun nuts and Evangelical Christian have taken control. Look, I respect everyone’s right to their religious beliefs. It is a fundamental part of what makes America great. But if Christianity becomes  as integrated with politics as many of the Evangelical leaders would like, say goodbye to science in public school (my son’s favorite subject – aside from art which will probably be second or third on the list to go).

I don’t really believe that McCain can take this election with Palin at his side, because I think the selection was an obvious (and misguided) attempt to manipulate perceptions. But, I also never thought an idiot who wants us to be afraid of “Terrists” could be elected – and he’s been chipping away at the foundations of our nation for 8 years. So, as someone afraid of even more egregious stupidity in Washington, I am doing something I don’t usually do. I am taking information that is surely all over the Web right now and reposting here in case one of my valiant readers has not yet seen this stuff about the real Sarah Palin. And there are legitimate citations thanks to moveon.org just in case any one reading this was taken in by one of those Obama is a freaky Muslim emails from a few months ago.

  • Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is “God’s task.” She’s even admitted she hasn’t thought about the war much—just last year she was quoted saying, “I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” 1, 2
  • Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party. Six months ago, Palin told members of the group—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to “keep up the good work” and “wished the party luck on what she called its ‘inspiring convention.'” 3
  • Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools. She hasn’t made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact.4
  • Palin doesn’t believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being manmade.” 5
  • Palin has close ties to Big Oil. Her inauguration was even sponsored by BP. 6
  • Palin is extremely anti-choice. She doesn’t even support abortion in the case of rape or incest. 7
  • Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She’s said she will only support abstinence-only approaches. 8
  • As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library. Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, “news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor.” 9
  • She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere (before she opposed it). Palin claimed that she said “thanks, but no thanks” to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But in 2006, Palin supported the project repeatedly, saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks “while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.” 10

Sources
1. “Palin: Iraq war ‘a task that is from God’,” Associated Press, September 3, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24701&id=13701-10465615-75TYM6x&t=6

2. “Palin wasn’t ‘really focused much’ on the Iraq war,” ThinkProgress, August 30, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24702&id=13701-10465615-75TYM6x&t=7

3. “The Sarah Palin Digest,” ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/

4. “McCain and Palin differ on issues,” Associated Press, September 3, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24703&id=13701-10465615-75TYM6x&t=8

5. Ibid

6. The Sarah Palin Digest,” ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/

7. Ibid

8. Ibid.

9. “Mayor Palin: A Rough Record,” Time, September 2, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=24704&id=13701-10465615-75TYM6x&t=9

10. The Sarah Palin Digest,” ThinkProgress, September 4, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/

Life

Commercials Suck Even More

  • by Drew

Why do we love assholes so much? Do you realize how many trillions and trillions of gigs of space are soaked up in the comment forums on TMZ-type sites with Springer wannabes arguing about the merits of loving/hating Paris, Britney (both chubbins and post-surgery versions), Loh-jam, Brange-fuckball, etc. Log into AOL instant messenger (come on, you know you want to) and actually look at the crap on the desktop application. Pick a link with an exciting new photo of one of these media darlings in a potentially compromising situation and spend some time reading the comments at the bottom. There will be dozens of “she’s a skank” comments along with “why don’t the evil paps leave these poor misguided celebrities alone” and a couple “I’m praying for you and your baby (or babies) because Jesus loves you and knows you are a good person and he is just waiting for you to step into his warm embrace and…” blah blah blah.

We love assholes. We love talking about assholes. We love arguing about whether or not they are assholes, or what quality of assholes they might be. And, some of us love complaining about the fact that we are alwasy talking about assholes. Yeah, I know I’m not helping the situation much right now.

But here’s the thing…in my commercial hating mode I have noticed several campaigns that celebrate asshole behavior. I mentioned the reflection phone ad in my last commercials post, but I forgot one of the worst offenders. There’s this awful Dell commercial focusing on digital cameras and bad Photoshop-for-dummies-esque software. This horse faced ass clown takes a bunch of rad self portraits with his chick. Then, they apparently break up and he starts taking bad shots of himself with his new chick. In between lady-friends he does some cropping of the old girlfriend from his terrific digital shots.

What is the message here? Technology will help you be a shallow prick. I mean, it’s not like he just painted a classic portrait only to find out she was banging his brush salesman, so he scribbles on a confusing smirk and changes the name of the painting from “Jenny Juggies” to “Mona Lisa” just to piss her off. This dude is taking self-portraits with a hundred dollar camera at a carnival. Just scrub the card and call it a day.

Why do we find this entertaining? Why do we celebrate people treating other people like assholes? Do you think he cropped her face out of the naked pics he got her to pose for after the carnival when she was all hopped up on fried Oreos and $15 beers? No, I bet he was emailing those to all his buds. He probably sent a couple shots to that dude with the mirror phone. No wonder that dude’s girlfriend looks so miffed.

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