A Baseball Prayer

A Baseball Prayer

Dear Superman,

Please let the Red Sox sweep the Yankees this weekend.

And let the Indians sweep the White Sox.

No Yankees in the postseason, please, Superman.

I'll leave cookies and milk on the hearth, and some carrots for your reindeer.

Amen.

Your Pal,

Tommy

A Random Baseball Thought

A Random Baseball Thought

You know, if this politics thing doesn't work out for John McCain, I'd like to see him push the Used Car Salesman ostensibly in charge of baseball out of that particular chair.

If for no reason other than he'd have no problem with putting Donald Fehr in his place.

Today's Funny

Today's Funny

I'd forgotten this one, and found it again while looking around the interweb:

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing.

He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President Bush exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the president sits, near tears, head in hands.

After a long, uncomfortable silence, the President slowly looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

Weekend in Review

Weekend in Review

I'm in the third day of a three day weekend, the first such a thing I've had in nigh on a couple of months. In fact, it's the first consecutive days off of any length I've had since my sister's wedding, the beginning of August.

Slept 11 hours Saturday. Considering I've been getting around 4 or 5 a night for a couple of weeks, I'll call that catching up. However, there was the problem when I woke up Saturday as to whether it was 11 in the morning or 11 at night. It's a welcome disorientation.

My buddy Steven and I hit a Braves game Saturday. I usually bitch about Braves fans. Stupid and spoiled, generally speaking. Considering that they couldn't sell out playoff games the past few years. Steven and I went, sure that we'd be able to walk up and buy tickets.

I'll give the Atlanta fans credit. They've got a young, scrappy team and the Atlanta fans came out in force Saturday. The radio said it was something like the 10th largest crowd in Turner Field history. Steven and I ended up having to buy from a scalper, which wasn't a bad thing. We sat in the outfield, which is where we wanted to sit anyway.

Braves won. Andruw Jones hit a monster shot to center. He'd have my vote for MVP. Without Andruw, this year, I think the Braves are somewhere in the same place as the Mets or Brewers. (Still better than the Cubs.)

Sunday, I wandered to Chattanooga to see Julie and Jason, who drove from Murfreesboro. It's still weird getting to see those two every other month or so, when we used to hang out two and three times a week.

Wandered through the new Saltwater Aquarium they've got in Chattanooga. Got to pet sea rays and bamboo sharks. The rays? Slick as owlshit. The sharks hide is not unlike the bottoms of my feet, which coincidentally enough smell like owlshit.

We also ate pizza at the Mellow Mushroom, which I was unaware had opened in Chattanooga, even though I'd been parking right next to the bugger any time I went downtown. I just never walked around to the front of that block, usually going the other way to go to the Lookouts games or the movie theater downtown.

And today? Well, it's a rainy sumbitch outside. Rita's rain, I think, has found its way to McMinn County. Spent the morning catching up on a couple of movies. Watching the Pride of the Yankees again. Haven't seen it for ten or twelve years. What a great flick.

Wouldn't it have been a whole lot different if everybody had teamed up to kill Gehrig's mother? Honestly. She's like something out of a Flannery O'Connor story....

Movie Moments that Make Me Laugh

Movie Moments that Make Me Laugh....

Just wanted to add a couple of moments to my mental list of moments that make me laugh in movies, no matter how many times I see them....

Watched Dodgeball again last night. Laugh most of the way through it. But I love the part just after Patches dies, Pete LeFleur gets surprised by White Goodman in the hotel room. White asks "Donde esta la biblioteca?"

I watched Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle again this morning. The whole bit where Harold and Kumar talk to Anthony Anderson at the Drive-Thru Window. What's the place called? Burger Palace, or something generic like that? I lose it every time Anderson, as the manic drive-thru employee, starts daydreaming about White Castles, and declares that the very thought of those tasty burgers make him want to Burn the Motherfucker Down! And he goes apeshit tearing up the restaurant while Harold and Kumar watch.

Laugh every time. Great stuff.

How about a classic? It's been several years since I've watched Pride of the Yankees, but I popped it in the DVD player this rainy morning. When his teammates are taking bites out of Babe Ruth's straw hat, and the Babe catches Gary Cooper's Lou Gehrig taking a second bite from the hat, there's a look on Babe's face that cracks me up....

Status Change

Status Change

Just wanted to make a note that this week, I lost one domestic blog link from my link list on the left, but gained one international link, as Danielle, from Missives Anonymous, has wandered clear to the other side of the planet. She now blogs from Australia.

I commented on her site that the world is such a smaller place to the kids of today than it was for my generation, and definitely for my parents' and their parents' generations.

I mean, with the click of a button, I can send just about any message to any point on the globe, so long as they have internet access.

Goofy and maudlin', I know. But It's 5:16, and I had an insomnia night.

Anyway. Go give Danielle a read.

It's Run Out in Front of Tommy Day

It's Run Out in Front of Tommy Day

An astounding number of animals in the road tonight.

1. A dog ran out in front of me as I was leaving work tonight. A mutt, but a mutt with a lot of German Shepherd in it. This one was too close. I locked the brakes up for that dog. Flatspotted the tires. Gonna have to pit.

2. A skunk (!!!!!) as I waited to turn next to McDonald's. A skunk! Yeah, it's a small town. I waited to let the skunk pass. I rolled up the windows. Just in case. Though I wondered what they'd do at the Wal Mart if I'd wandered up there to buy tomato juice smelling awfully of skunk spray.

3. Two cats near the courthouse. One was striped, one was white (or yellow). The striped one was being chased by the white (or yellow) one. I imagine the striped one had stolen something from the white (or yellow) one. Perhaps beer.

4. Another dog, on Cedar Springs Road. This was a BIG freakin' dog. My tired mind didn't even identify it as "dog" first. My mind said "VW Minibus. With Hair."

5. A deer, also on Cedar Springs Road. Gotta be careful. It's too easy to hit one of those rats with antlers when I'm driving home from a late shift. And they're the dumbest creatures God put on this Earth. Honestly. Horrible. Dumber than your average Alabaman, even. They see you, and decide to jump back into the road after jumping out. I hate those damn deer.

Five Posts in a Day

Five Posts in a Day

Five?!?!?!?!

From the e-mail, a joke:

Three men die together in an accident and go to heaven.

When they get there, St. Peter says, "We only have one rule here in heaven: don't step on the ducks!"

So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the place. It is almost impossible not to step on a duck, and although they try their best to avoid them, the first man accidentally steps on one. Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest woman he ever saw. St. Peter chains them together and says, "Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this ugly woman!"

The next day, the second man steps accidentally on a duck and along comes St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing. With him is another extremely ugly woman. He chains them together with the same admonishment as for the first man.

The third man has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for all eternity to an ugly woman, is very, VERY careful where he steps. He manages to go months without stepping on any ducks, but one day St. Peter comes up to him with the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on ... very tall, long eyelashes, big boobs, and thin. St. Peter chains them together without saying a word.

The happy man says, "I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?" The girl says, "I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck!"

Link

Link

Four posts in one day? What the hell? I didn't do this many posts in a whole week a couple weeks ago....

I saw this link on the blogger page, and had to check it out.

Make Your Turds Here.

Wasn't quite what I thought it was, but its name is surprisingly apt.

Stephen King

Stephen King

Sheila notes that today is Stephen King's birthday.

I read my first Stephen King book, The Shining, in the eighth grade. My friend Teddy had brought a copy from home to do a book report on, but our English teacher had said it was too advanced a book for Teddy to read. This is neither here nor there, but even if Ms. Schultz had been right, I think that was the wrong thing to say to a kid....

Anyway, Teddy said I could borrow the book if I wanted. I started reading it during last period Science class, and continued on the car ride home, and sat in the recliner downstairs and finished the thing around 11 that night.

It was one of those great times where you finish the book, and are astounded at the passage of time, not having realized just how long you sat there and read the book.

I took it back to Teddy the next day, saying that it was really, really cool. He didn't believe that I'd read the whole thing in one night.

Over the next year, I read near a dozen of King books, most of them found at yard sales or second hand stores.

The Stand I got in ninth grade. A couple weeks later, I got sick with the flu. It was probably as sick as I've gotten in my life. Out of school for a week, it knocked me on my ass so bad. Read The Stand that week. Still a favorite.

It was just after that that I picked up The Gunslinger, the first book in the Dark Tower series at the Sweetwater Flea Market. I probably paid 50 cents, maybe 75 for it. I've never been big on series, but I stayed with that one until he finished it up last year.

(I say that, but I've read the Harry Potter books, all Baum's Oz books, LOTR, the Chronicles of Narnia; but who's counting?)

On Writing is probably the strongest, and easily the most accessible, books on the writing process I've read. And I've read a few of them.

His best stuff is his short fiction, in my opinion. Short fiction's all about the story, and that's what his strength is. He's a lot of things, but he's a storyteller first and foremost. It's highly undervalued, in my book, in writing circles.

Favorite stories? The Mist, which you haven't read until you've read in the middle of the night, alone in the back room of a grocery store. The Jaunt is very good. The Body and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption are also fun...both got made into killer movies. The Sun Dog is good, but maybe because I read it around the same time I had a fascination with cameras. I've always liked Dolan's Cadillac, from Nightmares and Dreamscapes, but then, I like revenge stories quite a bit.

Anyway.

Just a few thoughts. Happy Birthday to Stephen King.

Big and Tall

Big and Tall

Saw this story over on Fark, and I wanted to comment on it.

Seems the Big and Tall Man's store, Casual Male, is dropping "Big and Tall" from its name, opting instead to use the more friendly term "XL."

The revelation for Casual Male came after surveys revealed many of its customers were embarrassed to be seen in public carrying the chain's shopping bags. Rather than just change the bags, Casual Male will change its name and banish the "Big & Tall" nameplate from 62 places where it appears in each of six test stores. Barring a customer revolt, the rest of the chain's 496 stores, including five in the Tampa Bay area, will change in the spring.

You know what? The tale of the tape on BSTommy, at 6'4" and over 300, puts me in the demographic courted for the Big and Tall Man's shops. I think I've got an opinion or two on this thing.

Maybe I'm giving the American public too much credit, but I don't think they need me carrying a "Casual Male" shopping bag to figure out that I'm bigger than most people. I don't think they'll need a shopping bag to clue them in that I'm not squeezing my fat ass into a 36x30 pair of blue jeans. But that's just a guess.

Folks, it's not the shopping bag that embarasses you. It's being a fatass.

I had to laugh at the idea, though, that they're changing the name to Casual Male XL so that it'll be more "athletic" sounding.

Dude, unless you're playing guard for the Titans, or are regularly lifting cars to compete in World's Strongest Man, if you're pulling the big 3 on the scale, you're not an athlete.

Hell, if I was more athletic, I'd probably not need to shop in the Big and Tall Man's shop. Then I could buy those funny, funny T-shirts I see sold by those cool kids in Hot Topix.

I laugh at this story, but I also have an inkling that such a move will work for the folks at Casual Male. To a degree. Because if there's anything we like to do as a people, it's bullshit ourselves. I think this will end up working for them in the long run.

One more point: I wouldn't be seen with a Casual Male bag anyway. Because I'm not made out of money, and don't want to have to take out a loan in order to buy a well-fitting pair of britches. If I were Casual Male (and really, who says I'm not?), and I were looking to increase customer count and profit, I'd look into this whole practice of charging 30 bucks for a t-shirt, and 60 bucks for a pair of blue jeans, especially in this day and age where any fellow of girth can wander into K-Mart and find pants going up to size 54 for a dollar and a half.

I'd like to close by saying that I'd like to shop at a store that advertises my bigness. I like the sound of "Achmed's House for the Colossally Big and Amazingly Tall." Mostly because I think the name Achmed is funny.

I think I would also spell Colossal with a K. Also funny.

In Which He Reports on a Dream...

In Which He Reports on a Dream....

I had a dream last night that we'd hired the wrestler Sting to work for us. And when he showed up to work his first day, he was in dress code, except for the fact he was wearing his facepaint.

And not the Scary Mime face paint he stole from The Crow.

It was the old multicolored Eagle facepaint.

And I had to tell him that he couldn't wear that if he was going to work with us.

And he started crying.

I woke up feeling like an ass, like I'd done something horrible.

Still. If you can fight your way through a Ric Flair figure four, you can fight through being told to take your makeup off.

Seriously, dude. Do you think Gordon Sumner would cry that way?

Suck it up.

Congrats

Congrats

Bill Bacon, who blogs over here occasionally, and who is my former roommate and one of my best friends, was married today in a small family ceremony.

I wish the best of luck to Bill and Roxanne.

Sunday Night

Sunday Night

A few random thoughts.

I don't think I've hated a show so quickly and instantly as I did The War at Home. I changed the channel when Michael Rapaport is doing the "free porn on the internet" speech. That's right around 15 seconds.

Dear TV: I apologize. When I said I want less reality TV, and more scripted stuff, I meant good scripted stuff, like Arrested Development or Lost.

Gracias,

Tommy

----

Also? can we have fewer cop shows? Is every show on CBS this year a cop show? It's like their weekly lineup is Two and a Half Men, and 63 cop shows.

----

Last year's interesting trend in my pick'em league concerning the Tennessee Titans continues. Last year, it seemed that every time I picked them to win, they'd lose; and every time I'd pick them to lose, they'd win.

Well, I picked the Ravens to run over my Titans, but the Titans defense came out and punched the Ravens in the mouth.

I can't complain much. I lost a few points. But the Titans won. And the Ravens, and their evil, faux-supergenius coach Brian Billick, deserve any loss they can get.

----

I haven't heard a good joke lately. Anybody got one?

Ten Albums, or Check me and my questionable taste out....

Ten Albums, or Check me and my questionable taste out...

From Dan by way of Sheila:

Off of the top of my head, these are the top ten albums I think should be in anybody's record collection.

1. At Folsom Prison; Johnny Cash
2. Dead Letter Office; R.E.M.
3. Long Black Veil; the Chieftains
4. To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With; Bill Cosby
5. Braveheart; James Horner
6. Gravitational Forces; Robert Earl Keen
7. A Place For My Stuff; George Carlin
8. Lonely Runs Both Way; Alison Krauss and Union Station
9. American III; Johnny Cash
10. Shut Up You Fucking Baby; David Cross

Just missing the cut were "Crushin'" by the Fat Boys, and every album Barry Manilow has ever made.

Funny Gunny

Funny Gunny

Are you reading Gunny Walker's blog?

I say you should be.

I also say we should all carry swords.

But that's neither here nor there.

Gunny's conversation here cracked me the hell up.

A New Take

A New Take

I enjoyed this thought on the movie Superman.

Personally, if I were Superman? I'd do the whole crushing the coal into diamonds thing, enough to buy myself an entire island, and turn that sumbitch into Supermanland.

Yeah, you thought the Sultan of Dubai had a harem. Wait till you see the last son of Krypton's....

Thursday: My Mind is Lying to Me

Thursday: My Mind is Lying to Me

I call the post that, even though it's not Thursday.

I've been up for an hour, and three times now, I've had to tell myself that it's not Thursday.

Wishful thinking? Probably. I get to sleep in a bit Thursday, and Thursday is also my last day of work after seven straight days of 10-12 hour shifts.

So my mind's trying to bullshit me into feeling good about today.

But it's just Wednesday.

I've checked and verified. Just Wednesday.

Feels like Thursday.

But just Wednesday.

Wow

Wow

Ya gotta want it. That's all I can say.

Well, that, and Soccer Players are just about the stupidest people on the planet. I mean, honestly, who wants to run up and down a field for an hour and a friggin' half to end a ballgame in a tie?!?!?

But that's not why I'm here tonight.

I'm here to link to the story from Fark, where a soccer player named Chavdar Yankow had a pretty rough day at the ballpark. I'll just quote the whole shebang:

A footballer had to have six stitches in his penis after it was ripped open in a tackle.

Chavdar Yankow, 21, sustained a three-inch gash playing for Hamburg 96 in Germany.

His shorts were "soaked with blood" but team doctors managed to patch Yankow up.

Amazingly, after the painful incident Yankow returned to the pitch and played on.

And the German went on to score in his side's 2-0 win over Frankfurt.

You know, I've never been an athlete outside of your beer softball league, so I'm not the best person to ask about the psyche of the athlete.

But I will say this: Outside of me stitching it up to pitch in the seventh game of the World Series for the Chicago Cubs, if I've taken an injury serious enough to need stitches in the manhood, you can probably count me out.

You'll see this line in the preview:

Tommy...Doubtful (Privates)

Still, Chavdar's made himself a helluva reputation, now. If you can take a slash to the junk and get back up and play, more power to you. I'm staying out of his way. Chavdar certainly can't take anything I'm going to dish out, and I'm not slashing privates.

Let me also say this: I don't know much about soccer. Like I said, to me, it's either a bunch of suburban kids running off a sugar buzz, or it's crazy Europeans who were too drunk to learn to swing a cricket bat, running around for an hour and a half, under the pretense of kicking a ball in one direction or the other, and then going home, drinking and (I would assume) collapsing. But I do know that nearly cutting a guy's pecker off is not how you play the game.

I hope the guy who tackled him got some kind of foul. He deserves a punch in the face, at the very least.

As if the running weren't enough to keep me away from the game....

Monday

Monday

My Mad Prognostication Skills showed up again for the weekend in NFL football. I'm not in last, which is an improvement over last year, over the first weekend.

Speaking of football....is Terry Bradshaw getting balder? Or did he borrow some of Barry Bonds' skull growing vitamins?

Titans got the shit kicked out of them. It's gonna be a long season. Jeff Fisher's last in Nashville, I think. Unfortunate, because he's a fine coach. He's gonna pay the price for some piss poor salary cap management.

Tommy's Tourist Guide to Athens, TN

Tommy's Guide to Athens, TN

For you tourists and lovers of fine food who might be visiting Athens sooner or later, plug this into your notes when dining in my hometown:

The Athens Taco Bell

Part of the chain of "Mexican" restaurants, it features much the same menu of the rest of the Taco Bell Chain.

There is one key difference in how the food transaction takes place. It is not so much what you order from the menu as it is how much money you give them. For example, were you to order five tacos and two burrito supremes, the counter person would take your order, charge you the menu price, and take your money.

Then, the person making the food will note just how much money has changed hands, and load your plastic bag up with however much of whatever random menu item is at hand that your money would buy.

For example, if you paid 11 dollars, you would get 11 dollars worth of something. Not necessarily (or even partially) what you ordered. But don't worry. They won't cheat you. Store policy seems to be: err, but err on the side of caution. They'll give you 11 dollars worth of something. Even if it's nothing but tortillas, beans and 3 pounds of lettuce. They won't cheat you.

There is no code. Don't try to cypher one out. Men have plunged headlong toward madness trying to connect "Chicken Taco" with "Three Squished Up Bean Burritos." It is a random generation of food.

Also, while you're at the Taco Bell, make sure to say hi to Hulga, the Counter Wench, whose rough, gruff, toothless and frowning countenance does nothing to hide her heart of pure, dark, slimy crud.

Statistics

Statistics

Statistics, from a Yahoo story:

Nose picking appears to be a habit that, although it usually begins in childhood, may actually linger into adulthood. If you find that hard to believe, consider that a 1995 study of adults found that 91% picked their noses on a regular basis - and about 8% of those people reported that they eat what they pick!

How many adults are there in America? 250 mil? For Argument's sake?

Which means there are 227.5 million adults who pick their nose.

Eight percent of that, as the story says, Eat what they Find. Now maybe you're more mature than I am, but when I read that line, my mind says "Holy. Shit."

Anyway, doing the math, that puts the number somewhere around 18 million adults in America, right?

Which means you have space in that number to include everybody from the state of Alabama (population 4.5 mil), with plenty of room left over for every White Sox fan everywhere

Tommy? Yeah, he picks. From time to time. Usually in the bathroom, where he's got toilet paper to wipe what he finds. But he's been known to go mining out of the toilet, up one nostril or the other to open up a blockage, or perhaps to silence a dreaded "whistler."

Which reminds me of a joke:

Why do Gorillas have such big nostrils?

Because they have such big fingers.

Another one...one I haven't thought of in a long time and it is tangentially related to our discussion.

How do you get 19 Alabamans into a volkswagon?

Put a booger on the dashboard.

Yeah. Not funny now, maybe. But a riot when you're in the fourth grade.

Neither here nor there, but also funny back in the day?

Where did Christa McAuliffe go for her vacation?

All over Florida.

But I digress.

I'd like to include a link to Wikipedia's section on Nose-Picking, which I found highly informative. I can't wait to whip the word "rhinotillexomania" at somebody. That's a word I'd like to see at the next year's National Spelling Bee. I'd especially like to see it used in a sentence.

Also, the entry says this:

Mucophagy, the consumption of the mucus...extracted [from the nose], while common in some cultures, is a much greater taboo. So much so, that even those who engage in the practice generally find it disgusting when done by someone else in their presence, much like flatulence.

Let me say this:

I was roommates with the Evil Hippy for a good long time. And let me tell you something about the boy. He can fart like nobody's business. Seriously. The boy ain't right. I would never enter willingly into a flatulence contest with him, because it'd be like taking a pen knife into a sword fight. I'd maybe get one good cutter off, and then I'd be nuked into oblivion.

My point here is that farting? In the scheme of things, I don't really have a problem. I do, if you're a stranger and it's the middle of K-Mart. But generally speaking, farts are funny.

But were the Hippy (or anybody, for that matter) to have whipped out a little mucophagy in the middle of a fart war, that'd have been dirty, dirty pool. It's a semantic issue, but I personally find the practice of eating what you find Much, Much more disgusting than flatulence. So much so that I capitalized Much. Twice, even.

That's merely personal preference.

Anyway. I just want to close with the old saying cited in the Wikipedia entry...You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose."

Unless they ask you.

A Change To The Lexicon

A Change To The Lexicon

In:

Fuck that Noise

Yeah, I know it's not new. We had a meeting yesterday, and when it came to discussing what we were having for lunch, I said that I was thinking about going up the street to the Subway.

"Fuck that noise!" one of the managers said. "You're coming with us to get real food."

For the whole rest of the day, that little phrase was running through my head. Like I said, it's not new. But I'd never heard it used so effectively as that guy whose name I never caught used it. If I can use it a third as well as he did, then I'm doing alright.

You've probably guessed by now that I spent most of the rest of the day thinking of situations and scenarios that involved me proclaiming "Fuck that Noise!"

A brief note: That's a real "special occasion" type of phrase. At least for me. I feel like if that's something you broke out more than a couple or three times, especially in a short period of time, it's one that might wear out its welcome quicker than Jesse Jackson can get in front of a TV camera.

Out:

"In the Wheelhouse" (var: In My Wheelhouse; In Your Wheelhouse)

I don't know why this phrase bothers me. But it does.

It's not the phrase so much as the people who use it. It's mostly frat guys and the sport guys who use it. Guys who don't want to sound girlish and/or out themselves as actually having a real vocabulary by saying the word "repertoire."

The phrase was bothering me before yesterday, when it was likewise used at the meeting I went to. Before the last little while, I can't recall hearing it outside of a baseball broadcast, specifically an Atlanta Braves radio or TV broadcast, where it's a favorite phrase of both Don Sutton and Joe Simpson.

It's one of those phrases that just kind of started showing up everywhere. On Sportscenter, where I heard Sean Salisbury using it. In that Comedy Central look at the 40-Year-Old Virgin movie. I heard a guy at the store using it the other day.

I admit that shis is exactly the same as the time you learn a new word, and in that moment of synchronicity, that word seems to show up 19 times over the next few days. Now, I'm sure that people have been referring to the repertoire as "the wheelhouse" for a while. And I've only recently started noticing it.

To my mind, that's no excuse. Use of this phrase must stop.

It also came up at the meeting yesterday. I think that's what's set me off. We were supposed to have certain things "in our wheelhouse" on a day to day basis.

Now, I'm not about to leave you with this huge gaping hole in your vocabulary by telling you to delete this phrase from your lexicon.

From now on, when you don't want to say "repertoire," and feel pressed to use the whole "wheelhouse" phrase, I want you to say "bananarama."

Yeah.

From now on, your ability to hammer nails (for instance) is not something you just have in your wheelhouse.

Your hammering ability is something you carry in your bananarama.

So. When you're in a conversation, and somebody pulls some of that "in my wheelhouse" crap, you say "Fuck that noise! You say Bananarama!"

You'd probably better headbutt them. Just to drive that point home.

Unless they're Samoan. Then just kick them in the nuts.

Wednesday

Wednesday

I like my job, but if I can have one complaint, it's that it'll have me working crazy hours. One morning, I'll go in at seven. The next day, I'll go in at 4 in the afternoon and close up.

Well, this morning, I get to run to Chattanooga, and I get to give somebody else a ride, which means I wake up at 4:45. I got home kinda late from work last night, and finally wandered to sleep around 11:30.

Which isn't a problem in and of itself, but I've had trouble sleeping the last three or four days. I don't normally need but about six hours a night. But I haven't even been getting that the past little while.

I was in a good, deep sleep when that alarm went off this morning. I woke up wanting to fight somebody.

Off tomorrow. Sleep. Maybe all day. Who can say what the future will hold.

Sleep. And probably going to the bathroom. But hopefully not at the same time.

The WWE House Show Notes

The WWE House Show Notes

The Monday Night Raw roster had a house show in Chattanooga last night. It was my first live wrasslin' event in a while. Probably since my buddy Barry's show last year, at the National Guard Armory.

A few notes:

• The Evil Hippy and I met my brother-in-law down at the McKenzie Arena about a half hour before bell time. He assured us before hand that the crowd would be small, especially with gas prices being what they are. He was right, as the 9,000 seat (or so) arena was maybe a little more than 1/3 full.
  
• Despite the small crowd, it was loud in the arena. Good acoustics, I guess. I'd imagine if you could fill the place, whether it be for wrestling or for basketball (it's where UTC plays their games), it's gotta be hopping place if you can fill it.
• Still, with the crowd so spare, it gave the three of us the opportunity to spread out. They don't make seats for three 6'3"+ guys to sit side by side.
• Howard Finkel was our ring announcer. That's a treat anytime The Fink shows up. If I were to win the lottery, one of the things I do is get The Fink to come to my house and announce, every now and then, "Here is your winner....And NEW Heavyweight Champion of the World....."
• Early on it was announced that Ric Flair wouldn't be performing, as advertised. That was disappointing. Refunds were offered for those who wanted one.
• The show opened with Eugene and Rob Conway. Typically, I'll root for the heel at a live show, and I put my support behind Conway, who we decided was this generation's Buff Bagwell.
• Also, say what you will about Eugene and his retard gimmick, the guys sells every bit of it, and the crowd at the show Ate It Up. It may not be as over everywhere, but the crowd just loved it last night.
• Probably the best match of the night, for me, was the Tajiri/Chris Cage contest. Kinda think Tajiri really popped Chris Cage with a crescent kick, on accident. Good 10 minute match from a couple of cruiserweights.
• The future is the past in the WWE, apparently. Real World Alumnus Mike "the Miz" Mizanin wrestled last night, against some dude who called himself the Stinkin' Freakin' Deacon, or something like that. The Deacon's gimmick was a cross between the Bezerker's and Brooklyn Brawler's, and he headbutts the turnbuckle 19 times, and licks the top ring rope. That's what he does. We joked "we just saw a preview of the main event for Wrestlemania 24 right there...."
• I've never been more bored with a match than I was with the Tag Team title match. The WWE let their only good tag team go when they let the Dudleys go. Why even have Tag Belts if you're not going to do anything interesting with them?
• Gyp? 2.75 for about 7 ounces of soda. I think, ounce for ounce, that may be one of the worst prices I've ever paid for a non alcoholic drink.
• Carlito ripped on Chattanooga, and especially on UTC, for changing from Moccasins to Mockingbirds, to keep from offending Indians. "How many Indians are there," he asked, "like five?"
• Chris Masters is an ever bigger waste of time in person. Dude's not only boring and uncharismatic, he's dangerous in the ring. There were a couple of cringe-worthy spots in his match with Shawn Michaels. If I were Michaels, I'd have thought long and hard about working a program with Masters. Somebody on a message board said it much better than I could have, when they said that Bret Hart in his Shawn Michaels Hatingest days was less of a danger to Shawn Michaels than Chris Masters is on a day-to-day basis.
• You should have heard the crowd pop when Michaels hit the ring. He was arguably the company's biggest heel leading up to the PPV a couple weeks ago. Dayum.
• Trish Stratus wrestled. That was cool. She tagged with the diva search winner Ashley in a match against Victoria and Candace Michelle. Ashley is already twice the wrestler than most of the women on the roster.
• You know, I thought the crowd popped when Shawn Michaels came out. I hadn't heard anything until John Cena's music hit.
• He wrestled Kurt Angle. This was probably the most fun of the night, if only because Bill, Jeff and I were cheering Angle on, much to the horror and consternation of the three small boys in front of us. Angle had Cena in the Ankle-Lock submission, and I was yelling for Cena to tap out. The small boy in front of me leveled me with a look more hate filled than just about any I've ever taken in my life.
• He and his family left midway through the Cena/Angle match, and we couldn't figure out if we as a group had just pissed them off, or if they'd decided the match was over after a near-three count by Cena, and they were trying to beat traffic.

All in all, a good show. Had a good time. It's a stress reliever to go someplace and yell for a while. I was telling Bill that it's been a while since I've been able to do that.

I remember the weekly NWA-TNA shows back when we lived out near Nashville. Wednesdays were a favorite day of the week, back then, if only so that I could go relieve stress by hollering at the top of my lungs for a couple of hours.

A Cure for Road Rage

A Cure for Road Rage

The short version.

The Evil Hippy and I were driving to the McKenzie Arena in Chattanooga, to see a WWE house show. We're waiting at a stoplight next to the arena. The light turns green, and a car in the oncoming lane decides that he doesn't need to wait for us to go before he turns.

He darts in front of us, and I'm doing my best to let him know that he's an asshole, when I realize who just cut me off.

It was Matt Hardy, his own self.

It assuaged the road rage.

I went from "What's this asshole doing?" to "Hey! That's Matt Hardy" in the space of a half a second.

Yep. Star Struck. It cures road rage. At least temporarily.

It gave him enough time to get away before I started getting mad about getting cut off again.

Star struck, although if I hadn't been paying attention, I'd have been star struck in that Matt Hardy-running-his-car-into-my-truck kind of way. Because Matt needed into the arena, apparently, and Now.

The Sunday Sixteen

The Sunday Sixteen

I'm wearing the sweatband that came free with my copy of the movie Dodgeball, which I got for Christmas last year. It is obviously made for heads much smaller than my size 8 melon. It is very tight, and it's starting to give me a headache. I'm getting a little light headed.

It ain't that time.

But I'm going to do it anyway.

The pairings are up:

1. Maria Sharapova
16. All the Octobers of Your Entire Life

8. Gary Busey, punching at the air
9. Two Bottles of Bourbon. For a Dollar.

4. A Ghost Shit so Spooky you'll Die of Fright!!!!
13. Getting A Paper Cut between your index and bird fingers.

5. Scooter by Mick Foley
12. The seventh game of the 1991 Twins/Braves World Series

3. The year 1933
14. A magical time, when nipples grew on trees.

6. If the Cookie Monster Were Your Best Friend
11. Indian Food (American, or Asian)

7. Gaining Third Place in your Fantasy Baseball League
10. Knowing that this is as well as you'll do in the league.

2. Slapping the Taste out of Jesse Jackson's Mouth
15. A dog that can deliver beer and predict the outcome of football games

------

Ground Rules:

The contest will begin yesterday, just after realized just how hung over you were. Tequila is a bastard's drink. We will play the game in the brass spittoon Marty McFly throws on Buford Tannen in Back to the Future III, asshole.

Due to the unpleasantness of the last two (2) contests, when you lose, you make like horseshit and hit the trail. We won't be having any D-Generation X style run-ins this time, Estelle Getty.

Judges for the contests: Joel and Ethan Coen, Thomas Pynchon, Cyndi Lauper, Mr. Peanut and the cast of the movie "Monster Squad."

Friday

Friday

I had a dream last night where I recieved my paycheck in chili dogs. A whole wheelbarrow full of chili dogs. Except, I didn't get my wheelbarrow of chili dogs. All I remember of the dream is walking around talking to people, and trying to tell them that I was looking for my wheelbarrow of chili dogs that I'd worked for, but they were all trying to thwart me.

That's what I remember thinking when I got up to take a piss. "They're all trying to thwart me."

-----

I went to see the movie Red Eye this afternoon, and found myself pleasantly surprised. There's just not a lot out at the movie theaters here lately that looks all that good. Red Eye looked to be the best of the bunch at the theater this afternoon.

It's a very tight movie. Every shot serves a purpose. The movie goes in and does what it sets out to do.

And I was probably the only person in the theater as amused as I was when Cillian Murphy seemed to channel the spirit of the late Marlon Brando when addressing Rachel McAdams menacingly.

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I liked this post Pete did at his fine blog, A Perfectly Cromulent Blog.

Mark Your Calendars: A Wrasslin' Post

Mark Your Calendars: A Wrasslin' Post

If you're within driving distance of Athens, Tennessee, and you're a fan of the pro wrestling, you should make a point to head this way next Thursday, September 8.

Hell, even if you're not within driving distance. That's why I'm telling you now, so you can start this way.

The McMinn County Fair will be in full swing, so you can partake of all the festivities there. All your normal fair proceedings will be in swing. Cattle judging. Funnel Cake booths. Cooking Contests.

There. Will. Be. Rides.

But the reason I bring it to your attention is that Thursday night, my buddy Barry will be promoting a wrasslin' show.

I've known Barry for probably 12 years. He's a couple or three years younger than me. I knew him through the local comic book shop, and I got to knew him as the little guy who was an even bigger wrestling fan than me.

Well, in the years that have followed, Barry's gotten into the pro wrasslin' game.

He got into the indy scene. He's been traveling all over the southeast, working independent shows. Here lately, he works most often in Knoxville and the surrounding areas. But in his travels, he's made friends and (more importantly) mentors out of some of the bigger names on the indy scene.

Barry's promoted quite a few shows locally. Using a lot of local talent, but bringing in a recognizable name or two. To show you his dedication, he handles all the logistics, he sets up the ring, the chairs, the concessions. He gets all the talent, he books the matches. And he usually wrestles two or three times over the course of the evening, generally in different guises.

Well, next Thursday's a big one. He's not run a show in a little while. He's been working for others more than running his own stuff. Like I said, making friends and making connections.

He's called in one of those big ones for next Thursday.

Back in the end of the Spring, beginning of the Summer, the wrestler we call Raven won the National Wrestling Alliance world title.

Raven's one of the many names that Barry's made connections with.

Next Thursday, Barry will be wrestling Raven at the fair for the NWA World Title.

It's a big day for Barry. He's worked hard, and this is a high water mark. Not THE high water mark for a career, we hope, but definitely a high water mark to this point.

He's been working doubly as hard for this one, to really get himself into great shape. He's excited.

So. Next Thursday. Athens, Tennessee. Bell time is 7:00 PM. I'll work on getting you an undercard. But the big one I'm there for is the Raven World Title match.

Should be a good one.

Third Person Thursday

Third Person Thursday

Tommy wants to pop into his blog, and say "Howdy!"

Life's been busy in his neck of the woods. Posting here has been sporadic, but Tommy's had other priorities.

Priorities like getting out of the house and off his ample rear end.

He did find time to see The Brothers Grimm, and was disappointed. He says that it just seemed thrown together. And he wasn't sure if Peter Stormare was trying to be cartoonish by design and direction, or if he was trying to steal any weak scenes he was in. Either way, he failed miserably, and just ended up annoying Tommy all through the movie.

He enjoys the Red Stripe Beer "Hooray Beer" commercial that runs on ESPNEWS in the afternoon. The line "You are very ugly" makes him laugh muchly.

He would like to take a minute to say that you should probably turn off the CNN, Fox News, the Weather Channel and all that other hurricane mess. Yes, it's horrible. But it watching it constantly on the television doesn't do much for you, except work bad psychological mojo on you. Tommy's got a suspicion that the constant devastation news, combined with the bullshit hikes in gas prices, are a large part of why everybody seems to be on a lower keel than normal, as far as mood goes.

Donate some money to the Red Cross, and most of your locales will be holding some physical donation drives this weekend, if they haven't started already. Help that way.

Staring at a teevee about the news doesn't help them, and it's doing you a bit of harm, Tommy reckons.

The gas prices? Well. Tommy won't holler. He wants to, but he won't. The lowest price he saw in his trip to the post office and the K-Mart this morning in Athens, TN, was $2.99 a gallon. And he heard tell on the radio of bad gouging at some back road stations, to the tune of 4 bucks a gallon. Rumors, mind you. But stuff like that tends to get Tommy's blood boiling, so he's trying like hell to ignore that, too.

Anyway. Tommy's gotta go to work. Which he's thinking is something of a bummer.

His motto? Working's for suckers.

And it really is.

Know you know.

And Knowing is Half the Battle.