Lazy... Crazy!?

So... Let me just say it.  I'm a bad person.  I snicker when people trip, I never call home enough, and I haven't blogged in a long long time.  I think those three things together are going to keep me from getting prime seats for The Rapture.  Don't get me wrong I'll totally score seats, but I won't be able to make out any of the action.  So in an effort to ensure that my eternal entertainment isn't marred by someone too tall sitting in front of me, here is a nice little update for the people who still get lost and find their way to my site.

Recently, I have been a regular font of creativity.  Maybe a muse has touched my prominent brow, maybe I'm slowly being poisoned while I sleep at night, or maybe I'm just beginning my slow descent into dementia.  Whatever the reasoning may be, I have been a man obsessed with trying to think of funny T-Shirt ideas and slogans.

It all started with Snorg Tees.   I read a bunch of cute shirts and thought: "Hey! I can totally do that!"  I come up with little one-liners all the time on my Twitter, and I'm not completely at a disadvantage when it comes to using simple drawing tools.  So I set about copying and pasting and drawing a couple different ideas to submit to Snorg with the hopes that at $150 a pop they might like one or two and I'd be able to say I was a published author read by thousands.

 Let me share some of my creations with you!

Then someone directed me to Threadless where they can pay as much as $500 for a slogan.  The only hitches being that all ideas are put up for community vote, and they limit you to 65 characters.  That is far shorter than my 140 limit on twitter so needless to say I've been having a little trouble formulating some compelling quips.  And the slogans I have thought up have also not been well received by my normally adoring public.

Even though I'm clearly not going to make oodles of money off of my "everyday talent," I realized that it has been a lot of fun thinking up all these things.  So if you all feel the urge, give in and express your creativity in the best way you know how.  While the fiscal rewards may be few and far between the feeling of accomplishment is pretty superb!

The Importance of Reading the Entire Recipe...

This week has been a little tight in the budget department.  So I decided to peruse the internet in search of an affordable menu item to make myself.  I came across this little recipe for Salmon Orzo Salad, which apart cutting my finger (thank God I bought the Pink Salmon right?), and determining that Three Cheese Italian Dressing doesn't exist (it really meant the three cheese ranch), this was pretty easy to make. Go ahead take a look.  Sounds light and delicious right?

And it was light and delicious...  And it continues to be light and delicious.  What I'm betting some of you didn't notice at the first read was the very last paragraph of the recipe says it serves 8.

Instead of a couple of healthy portions, I ended up making enough to feed the entire Brady Bunch Family.  After all when I think salad, I naturally think of feeding 8 people, and really the recipe was a conservative number since I easily got 10 servings from that meal.  Now really it was my own fault for not reading the recipe that deeply.  Most of the recipes I checked had a serving size of 4 so I assumed it would be the same.  And what's that saying about people who assume?

So, Saturday, I finally managed to put the last gallon into little zip-loc bowls to be rationed out for this week.  Ensuring that this light and delicious meal is about to become a long an arduous task, rather like eating my first cup of Jell-O (ugh I hate Jell-O).  And even though it really was easy to make, with the little diced bits of cheese making the dish rather decadent, I probably won't be making it again any time soon.

Moving Forward and also The Problem with Non-Stick

I've been looking at my blog and I've been feeling some sort of change may be in order.  I originally set up this site with a Blogger Template.  Which was simple and very helpful for someone new to blogging.  I would definitely recommend starting out with these templates to anyone who wanted to start broadcasting their thoughts into cyberspace but has zero know-how.  But I've been doing a little research and have been looking at changing the site just a little.  Maybe something a little more eye friendly, and that allows me a little more freedom of expression.

So, over the next couple weeks or so I'm going to be experimenting with a couple of different web design tools, and layouts for the blog.  I welcome (and actually crave) comments and suggestions as to what you all may want to see.  Just remember this ain't Burger King and I'm also still very new, so if you suggest something and I don't immediately do, it may mean I either don't know how, or maybe I just don't want to, so there.

Now that all the serious stuff is out of the way I'm sure you all were craving a little humor when you came here.

So lets take a moment to discuss something almost everyone here can appreciate.  Food (remember I'm a fat kid).

I cannot stress enough the purchasing of some medium quality cooking-ware for your food.  Listen to my real-life cautionary tale... If you are looking at some cooking supplies to start your kitchen as a college student stay away from the $20 area of kitchen supplies.   I thought I was being sneaky when I purchased what I thought was a full set of pans for such an outrageously low price.

Oh Wal-Mart, you mean-hearted bitch.

After a couple months of use I found that I must have exceeded some sort of heat limit on the pans, one night.  On that delightful night, I had made a delicious pasta dish in one of my skillets, and sat down to enjoy the first bite when I was made aware of an inherent flaw in the discount pans.  I had what I thought might be bits of pepper in the dish.  They looked black and small.   But in that first bite I was greeted with a flaky material that I would say was similar to popcorn kernels.  When I reached into my mouth to pull out the offending hard bit it was one of those pepper flakes.  Then I thought:

"When did I add pepper to the sauce?  More importantly why is there so much pepper? I don't even taste the pepper either... Something doesn't seem right about this..."

And then my brain put it together and I rinsed off my pan to get a clear look.  It was terrible.  It had looked like I had taken a cheese grater to the non stick coating!  My pans must have thought they would improve upon my recipe because I looked at my plate and there was definitely a liberal amount of black specks in that dish.  Naturally, my next instinct was to get angry.  I mean, my food had been ruined!  And how dare a cheap piece of equipment backfire on me!  Then I  threw the food and the offending pan into the trash and only after brushing my teeth so furiously that I'm sure I glistened like a diamond in the sun I finally calmed down and ordered a pizza (in keeping with the Italian Theme).

So please if you are planning a kitchen purchase... go for the good stuff.

Worst $20 bucks spent EVER.

The Move... With a Capital M... For Murder?

This past weekend my friends and I moved into our new place.  And really... I could say it went smooth like butter.  That it was a beautiful experience where all of us learned a little more about each other and grew as people.

The reality though is that it was a a lot of work.  Hot, swear-riddled, foot stubbing, heel blistering, heavy lifting work that I never thought would be over.  I think one of my friends best summed it up with:

"This would be over already if you didn't live in a freaking fortress of solitude." 

Which was the main main reason for my move here.  I lived much further from work than was acceptable and this place was much closer.  

Like clockwork, I was having to trek back and forth between the old and new apartments much more than I care to admit (I believe it was 8-10 trips, but I may have exaggerated the memory in my mind).  But let us all go back to day one... A Sunday morning...

It all started out simple enough, I had arrived at the office bright and early at 10:15 AM.  After all, who wants to drag a move out with the Texas heat and everything?  Only to find out... their offices don't open till 1 PM!!  I can't stress this enough.  They don't open their doors early on a weekend at the end of a month when people are obviously going to be moving.

This was just one more irritation that would need to be stifled later... with a milkshake.  But that was fine, I just had a slow start for the morning with the new roommates.  Once 1 rolled around we all headed to the office to pick up our keys and get the move started.  At this point the office said that it looked like we owed them more money.  Naturally my first instinct was to say, "FOR WHAT?... ahem I mean, for what?"  I almost leapt across the table and needed someone to call the police with a list of demands.  

Let me pause here for a moment to explain my strong reaction.  This apartment management has made the signing of this lease sooooo lengthy.  My friend, the DJ, who has lived at his complex for 6 YEARS, was instructed that they would not let us sign the lease until they did the walk through of his apartment.  Which struck me as odd.  If we were coming from a different complex they wouldn't walk that apartment. We just wanted them to treat us as new leasers if they weren't going to give current resident any preferential treatment.  Why on earth would they need that stipulation?  Then, when the DJ (a notoriously clean person to begin with) was ready for them to do the walkthrough, they didn't let him schedule it with them.  They would just get to it when they could.  You know.. no rush.  It wasn't like my lease was ending in a couple weeks or anything.

This, on top of a couple other boring but still equally confusing (and irritating) slip-ups on their part, is why I was so quick to start reaching for the gun I don't own, nor know how to use.

After navigating those turbulent waters we then started the whole moving process of back and forth, lift and turn, drive and park, shove and pull.

Most notably, though, my couch was the most nerve wracking experience of all (at least in my mind).  One very unwieldy sleeper sofa and a love seat do not make for a stress free move, even when the DJ's boyfriend (lovingly referred to as White Guy #1) was kind enough to lend his truck and his expertise for the endeavor.

The 15 minute drive from my place to the new apartment ,with the couches, were wrought with.. Is it slipping? is that a cop? is this stacked too high?  We are sooo country/ghetto...  Look a squirrel!  Focus John.. focus.  Make sure the truck doesn't tip over...

After we finally got that all settled, there were still a number of things to handle but the rest of the evening seemed to go smoothly after that.  I am still unpacking a few boxes, and I'm sure that as the number of unpacked boxes dwindle further, my drive will shrivel into nothing and that last box will be unpacked sometime in February.

I'll end this post to the surprise helper with the Move (shout out to the Diva)!  Hope everyone had a good week/weekend!

When Is A Yard Not A Yard? When It Is An Embarrassing Story About A Spaceship! (And maybe a mention about the move)

I'm working on the post that shows the move in all its glory.  The struggles, the up's, the down's, the point where I thought I might have leapt across a desk and started a hostage situation.  But until that post is done, you will just have to make do as I invite you to share a memory from Virginia..

Way back in the day when I was just a wee little boy (I honestly can't recall how old I was 3, 4 or maybe 5?) I always, so desperately, wanted to hang out with the bigger kids.  They were always playing some sort of fun game, and I just wanted to play too.

One day all the kids were playing: "Pretend this yard area, between the houses, is our space ship." Naturally I wanted to join in too, and anyone who knows me, will know I loved playing imagination type games when I was growing up (symptom of a single person?), so this was right up my alley.

It was so much fun!  We had even sectioned out certain trees as certain parts of the space ship. We had the bridge, where we would steer the ship.  We had an engine room where the engines did their things to make us go fast.  We even had a shuttle area where we could enter out into the "worlds" we wanted to explore. We had thought of basically everything, right?  We thought out so much about the layout of our ship, in fact, that we even designated a tree as... a restroom.

That's right folks, our spaceship had a bathroom.  Our technology was that advanced.

Now I'm gonna stop right here because I noticed you were choking on your drink/food/spit/gum/candy.   So breathe in and out because folks, this story is going right where you think it's going.... in a horribly-embarrassing, life-defining, parents-still-bring-it-up direction.  Ready?

So here we are, in outer-space, we had just finished fending ourselves off from the space aliens or something, and we had this bathroom that no one had used yet.  And then... someone used it.  We little boys were like, well  this is why it's fun being a boy, right?  The world is our urinal!  So all of us took our turn to whiz on this poor poor tree. And then it's my turn.  Only I didn't have to go.

I had already peed earlier and just didn't have a drop to drip.  And while I'm sure none of the kids thought anything of it, all I could think was: "I'm being left out because I don't need to pee!  What am I gonna do.  What can I do?"  I didn't want to be left out.  If I chose not to join in this part of the game, would the older kids think I was being a baby?  

Like most of the bad decisions in my life seem to begin, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea.  And what follows is really nothing more than a testament to my ability to commit to an imaginary role.

I realized I didn't need to pee, but people don't just pee in a bathroom... they do number 2 as well!  And I had a feeling that I could definitely do that at least.  I was saved!  God, I was a genius... My parents were sure lucky they had me around to help think their way out of any tough spots.  So I nonchalantly pop a squat, did my thing, and it was over.  Apart from the whole glossed over point that I DIDN'T HAVE TOILET PAPER it wasn't that gross, and everyone else seemed to take it in stride.  Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Later that day, after heading back home, I think it was my Aunt who told me she had received a phone call.  Apparently, some lady, whose house shared that same yard/spaceship saw that I had taken... creative liberties, and she was very, very upset.  But I explained that I didn't think I hadn't done anything wrong: everyone else had peed and I didn't need to pee, so I went ahead and took a poop.  And the logic behind it, to me was so rock-solid, not to mention absurd, that I think some of that rubbed off on my Aunt (and later my Mom when I had to explain the situation to her too), because I honestly don't remember ever getting in trouble for this.  I just remember my Aunt and Mother laughing... a lot.

To this day my parents and sister like to reminisce about this... normally when there is company, such as unknowing relatives.  After all, isn't that what family is?  People who will invariably remember the things that we really wish they didn't?