Life

Blue, Gold and Vroom Vroom

  • by Drew

We just had the big Blue & Gold dinner for Cub Scouts. Boy, does this bring me back. I can still remember sneaking bits and pieces of such events from back when I was a scout. I mean, I never progressed beyond Webelos, something like 6th grade for me, but there were some good times.

The B&G dinner is a big family event for scouts, and it’s when most receive their next significant achievement, or the one they’ve been working toward for the year. My little guy got his Wolf badge, looking so good in his uniform. And the penne and meatballs plus salad served buffet style… not too bad.

The best part of the evening – the Native American dance demonstration. It was…illuminating. It gave me a whole new perspective on that snake dance ritual in Billy Jack, too. There’s really nothing I can say that won’t sound like a sleight, so I’m going to just leave it at that.

We still have a couple of good scouting events to end out the year. In a couple of months there’s an overnight trip to a battleship. I’m totally looking forward to that. And, of course, the Pine Wood Derby is only a month away. Our car is shaped and ready for paint. And I’ve already priced high risk auto insurance for the event, so we’re ready to roll.

Is it weird that I’m having more fun with my son as scout then when I was a scout myself?

Life

Mattress Dump

  • by Drew

You know that warm feeling I had thinking about the kindness and generosity of people donating their used books to local libraries for fundraising book sales?…yeah, that’s gone.

I mean, I think it’s still really cool that people are willing to donate their stuff to benefit a charity, or people in need. But only when they do it properly. I guess it is hard to screw up library donations. You have books, you put them in an old office supplies box, and tote them to the library.

It’s kind of like the big metal Goodwill donation bins. You know, they put them in parking lots with clear instructions that they’re for clothes and shoes only. If you bother to read the smaller print you see that they ask people to not leave anything around the bins. This is because the owners of the land on which the bins are sitting usually get pissed if there’s a lot of garbage hanging around, and they will have the bins moved.

The instructions ask that you not leave bags of clothes or shoes around the bin if the bin is full. they also ask that you not leave anything else around the bin, like books (we already know the library will take them) or furniture or baby items like cribs and strollers. They are pretty specific.

So can someone tell me who the incredible ass munchers are that leave strollers and cribs and chairs and other huge things around those bins? Come one. How much ass do you have to much for your brain to rot so much that you gleefully dump your old jizzy couch next to the Goodwill clothes and shoes bin? There was actually just such a bin with just such a couch on my way to work, in a little park and ride lot. I noticed a couch and armchair show up about a year ago. Every week for about 2 months I drove by and it was still there. Finally, after two months, the couch and armchair were gone. And so was the bin. Thanks for ruining it for everybody else couch jizzer.

A couple weeks ago we went to a favorite local diner. Toward the back of the parking lot are a couple of Goodwill bins. Leaning against the Goodwill bins were a couple of mattresses. Seriously. Mattresses?Think about it. Somebody had to actually transport that mattress to the bins. Couldn’t they have just gone another mile or two down the road to the town dump? Talk about a super douche.

Life

Used Lit

  • by Drew

We’ve had a couple of book sales at local libraries recently, and I love them. I love picking up second hand books for a buck or less, giving them a good home where they will be loved and read over and over. And it’s great for the kids, especially my second grader, who is both an avid and an accomplished little reader.

I love pawing through the texts, discovering little gems I never knew existed. Maybe even better is finding the books I read as a kid. Often a little musty smelling, and in the same editions I read back then. But who cares – Superfudge is Superfudge. What could be better?

And I can’t help thinking about the little old ladies who were probably relatively hot young Moms when I was reading Encyclopedia Brown and The Three Investigators. Now they’re loading their grown kids’ old books into boxes with Aerobics videotapes and the best personal budget software on Apple-formatted floppy disks that 1987 had to offer.

It’s a great big giant ass circle, ain’t it?

Life

OTR

  • by Drew

Seriously? You’ve never listened to Old Time Radio? What about Abbott and Costello, Who’s on First. That’s a Camel cigarettes classic. And the Shadow…you’ve never heard the Shadow? Holy crap, man, those old Orson Welles episodes were legendary.

I love the old radio shows. There’s something so magical about radio. For decades, radio ruled. Most shows had one sponsor, sometimes with an addition public service announcement. Maybe a call to all Americans to consider investing in War Bonds (later Savings Bonds). Great stuff, kids. Great stuff.

Of course, today, we’d probably have a variety show hosted by Tonya Harding and Ashlee Simpson, with guest interviewer Courtney Love sitting down with Norman Mailer. It would be sponsored by some acne serum or the 2 volume DVD set, Best of Fox Reality Television from the last 20 years (and the second disc is mostly previews for upcoming new Fox Reality shows).

Yeah, we’d pretty much screw it up. Considering the recent rash of Hollywood remakes of everything from Halloween to The In-Laws to Pelham 123 to The Bad News Bears to Fame to the Manchurian Candidate… Yeah, let’s keep the idiot media-makers as far away from these classics as possible. We can just enjoy them with earbuds. Shhh. Don’t tell.

Booze

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

  • by Drew

The exciting adventures of the man with the action packed expense account, America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator, yours truly, Johnny Dollar.

Expense account submitted by special investgator Johnny Dollar. Following is an account of expenses incurred during my investigation of the chunky affairs matter.

I shaved, showered, put on a clear shirt and tie and spent item one, $1.35 on a cab to Teddy Lightweight’s office.

Item 2, $27 for a cup of Starbucks coffee and a copy of The Big Barista Picks Sambas to Get Caffeinated With on compact disc.

Item 3, $18 for the best eye cream in Hartford, CT to mask my hollow, sleepless eyes.

Item 4, $1 toll for the Kingston Bridge toll back to this side of the river, the side of the river where she lives. The lady in question. The cold, calm and calculating female who is invariably more deadly than the male.

In the parking lot of the Grocery Store I realized the need for items 5 and 6, $18 for a 12 pack of Twisted Tea and $4 for a metal nail file, just right for a lady’s purse.

Item 7, $3.50 for the generic brand adhesive bandages I used to stop the bleeding after shotgunning half a dozen malt beverages and stabbing myself blind. Don’t judge me. If you saw those behemoths making out on the dropped bed of that rusted out Ford pickup. All that writhing flesh. The guy with a plumber crack large enough to warm one of my 12 ounce tasty bevvies. The she-beast with parachute-sized bikini panties showing, a tramp stamp larger than my head.

Item 8, $45 emergency room copay. Hey, it’s a good thing I’m an insurance investigator and actually have health coverage.

What, am I the only person left who listens to Old Time Radio?

Confessions

Redesign

  • by Drew

I was in the shower the other morning and had a thought. No, this is not another plea for better weight loss programs. It was while I was shaving a small spot on my bicep so I can share in the whole temporary tattoo thing with the kids. Unfortunately, it is the only place on my body, other than the back of my hand, that I can put one.

So I contemplated this form, this hairy, hairy form. This body that looks like the jacket photos of Kiss band members on the Crazy Nights record, back when man-fuzz was big. And as I thought about it, I realized that you would have to be a total imbecile not to see a direct evolutionary connection between chimp and man. Seriously, I’m like a poster boy for Darwin’s big theory.

And seriously, there is nothing about this design that anyone with half a brain could label as intelligent.

Life

Hula Hips

  • by Drew

A recent trip to the hallowed toy aisles at our local Target inspires and informs this post –

And let me say first that this is not an attack on the overweight. I do that enough, including a good bit of self-deprecation, of course, but today’s words are not the quick weight loss diet variety.

So this message does not just go out to those of ample carriage. Instead, I speak directly to anyone who is

  • Over the age of 14
  • Taller than 5′ 2″
  • Heavier than 100 pounds

Please, if this describes you…please…do not walk up and down the toy aisles with a hula hoop around you as though it is an oversized and particularly rigid belt.

Please. It’s just not right.

Life

Growing up Fast

  • by Drew

I’m not someone who worries too much about my kids surpassing me in the whole technology arena. Not yet anyway. I mean, I know it’s coming, but I have at least a few years. I used to think I had decades, but not after today.

See, it’s still all about the Internet, and that’s what I do. I had a Hayes micromodem in the 80s dialing up the bulletin boards and leaving messages for other kids hiding behind pseudonyms – we called that email. And somehow, in the mid 90s I fell into this business just as it was going somewhere, and I’ve managed to hang on and hang in through a bubble burst and a recession and two terms of Bush.

Now I have my iPhone and I know plenty about WAP and wireless protocols. I’m getting involved in the development of a mobile marketing platform and, of course, I am still elbows deep in Internet applications.

But today, the old desktop computers I have kept around for the kids…well, not enough. My four year old demanded a kids website that his older brother frequents. He needed the arcade and he needed some advanced plugins and the most up to date browser version and Mommy was at the store so her laptop was fair game.

So, yeah, you can just hear it. My four year old pushing my hand away after I typed the URL.

“I can do it, Daddy.”
“But you never used the trackpad…”
“I can do it, Daddy.”
“There’s no mouse, you need to move your finger…”
“I can do it, Daddy.”
“But you can’t read. How are you going to find the games…”
“I can do it, Daddy.”
“Okay, fine. Let me know if you need help.”
“I can do it, Daddy.”

Then, of course, the four year old did it. He mastered the track pad in 6 seconds and would not relinquish the laptop for 2 hours. We had to lure him away with Dino nuggets and chocolate milk.

I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or pissed. Actually, maybe I should be scared, because you know he’s going to be coming for my machine next.

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.