Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish…

I call bullshit on this one.

I may or may not be a conspiracy theorist but one can only hope the stupid, manipulative son of a bitch did die of a heart attack. My thought is that he finally saw the light and put a gun between his teeth and did the decent thing.

One can only hope.

BREITBART.COM – Enron Founder Kenneth Lay Dies at 64

Happy Something or the Other

Today, in America, it’s the Fourth of July.

Well, I mean it’s the fourth of July here too, but it’s not celebrated–unless you call going to work and NOT having a full cow on a spit when you arrive home ‘celebrating’. (We’re having pasta tonight. Just so you know.)

Anyway, I’m feeling a bit more homesick than I thought I would. And by homesick, I mean I miss going to my friend Ron’s house where there was always food and drink and good times.

So Ron, if you’re reading this, hope you had a great Fourth. (Even if you’re burning your ass off in Vegas. Good god, man…! Vegas??? What were you thinking???)

Super Fun Sunday Day Out

Every Saturday and/or Sunday my wife and I try to get the hell outta Dodge and go for a walk somewhere away from the crowds, the smashed beer bottles and whatever bullshit ‘cultural’ event the City of Belfast tries to promote for whatever reason. It’s not that Belfast doesn’t have it’s high points–I just get tired of seeing them five days a week and need to go someplace where there’s nature and less chance of having my cell phone stolen by street gangs.

(Ha ha ha hahahahahaha! I’m kidding. Nobody would EVER try to steal my cell phone. And if they tried I’m pretty sure I could knock them unconscious with it or at least qualify them for reconstructive dental surgery on the NHS.)

This week’s nature exposition expedition was to Castlewellen:

Castlewellen is exactly where the clouds are sitting. It was too late to turn back! Onwards!

We left the flat knowing full well that the weather wasn’t supposed to be great but we took our chances and headed to where I thought the weather would be the best. As you can see by the above pic, I chose the only place in Northern Ireland where it was actually raining. Chalk another up another skill to go along with my lack of direction, no sense of time, and a psychic ability to command flies to do my bidding!

OK. I can’t command flies to do my bidding because if I could I would have sent the bastards circling my head away to momentarily blind the little girl who, for some reason, was trying to ride between my legs on her new bike. I’m not the BFG, people. I will kick small children. Ask my nephews.

All in all it was still a pretty good day, despite the rain and the flies but I feel like something is missing– like I should have learned some sort of lesson or come away from the experience wiser and more mature but I didn’t learn nothing.

By the way, what the hell happened to June?

 

 

My Wife Is Smarters Than I Wish She Were

After 8 beautiful years of marriage, it seems my wife is on to me.

I have a tendency to download the occasional tune from COMPLETELY LEGAL file sharing… ahem… services and tonight I sought a particular song that I happen to find very catchy.

This is what transpired as I attempted to listen, in private, with my earphones as my wife watched the uber retarded Big Brother:

HER: Are you listening to Kelly Clarkson?

ME: What? What did you say? Am I glistening in smelly chrysanthemum? You make no sense, woman! Begone! Begone, I say!

HER: You think she’s hot.

ME: Whatever.

It’s lucky that I’m so incredibly quick witted. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get away with nothing.

WTF???

Ya know,there are days when you’re just in a kick-ass frame of mind.

Today was one of those days.

But you must always remember: When you’re up, there’s always somebody waiting to kick the feet out from underneath you.

That was also today.

(And why is there a cat sitting above me? What does that mean? I don’t even own a cat!)

Screw it

Today several things crossed my mind.

This is quite unusual.

I’m not a heavy thinking kind of guy. Of course, I do work in the ‘Creative’ industry so I am thinking pretty hard most of the day. (It takes skillz to sell da shoppin’ centers-ya know what I’m sayin’, peeps?)

It’s my down time where I’m either thinking of nothing special (“IS Britney going to dump K-Fed or what?”) or I’m thinking especially of nothing (which is something I have trouble convincing my wife that I’m capable of. Apparently, women are constantly following threads of thought from one thing to the other while men have the gift of tuning their minds to a non-broadcast station and just enjoy the white noise.).

My point is, over the last year or so I’ve realized a couple of things about myself.

1. I’m slightly obsessive compulsive. I won’t step on cracks (lookin’ out for mom), I dress in a certain way, in a certain order, at a certain time of morning and I’m COMPLETELY anal about getting to the train station early even though I know from experience that it’s never on time.
2. I have a tendency to be a bit manic-depressive.  For the last two months I decided to self-medicate and started taking St. John’s Wart. At first I found it soothing to be in a constant state of “meh…” but soon learned that I missed the manic phase where I had abnormal amounts of energy and actually enjoyed speaking to my co-workers, friends and family. (I’m off that stuff now and I’m thinking that it was  affecting my short term memory. Seriously. It’s much better now that I’ve stopped taking it. And that weird eye twitch I’ve had for 2 months has gone away.)
3. I’m going bald.

I think out of the proceeding 3 items it’s the ‘Going Bald’ thing that took me the most by surprise. I mean, a bald man is the first to know what’s going on. No amount of self-denial will convince my fellow shedders that the ‘dandruff’ we’re experiencing after having burnt our noggins in the sun is because our shampoo has let us down.

It’s just that I always thought I’d have some decent coverage–and I didn’t think it would move from my head to my back and shoulders. (Both of my brothers still have full heads of hair! I got screwed. Damn genetics.)

Anyway, there’s no point to any of this. I’m just trying to clear the cobwebs from the last two months of over-the-counter “happiness”.

Screw being normal.

I’ll Never Understand Women

This is a transcript of a real, unedited conversation between my wife and I this morning:

ME: I'm cold.

HER: Maybe if you got the Hoover out, you'd warm up.

What does this mean?

How to Know If Your Marriage is Sound

I can count on one hand the number of times I've let my wife drive the car.

OK, that's not quite true. She has driven probably a thousand times in the (relatively) short time that she's had her license (this was in the States where any monkey can push the accelerator and keep the car on a straight path with the aid of power steering)– but not while I was in the car. I am a very bad passenger when it comes to female drivers. Perhaps this surprises you because I'm such a tolerant, understanding, sensitive human being but, alas, I do have my faults.

I have never and won't ever believe any statistic that claims women drivers are safer drivers. Nor will I ever believe that old people are safer drivers either. My theory is that both demographics drive in such a controlled, law-abiding manner as to render the "good" drivers, i.e. young men, helpless in everyday driving situations and such driving forces the good drivers to crash into small children and garbage trucks. And when I say "young men" I, of course, mean men of my exact age that drive exactly as I do.

Men are aggressive and we see the road as an enemy to conquer and you do not conquer enemies by greeting them politely and obeying the rules set out by them. You have to power over them, flatten them, embarrass them, take names and kick ass on them. And then sometimes, we like to casually take our time with the enemy, giving them a false sense of security before we downshift and scream up a hill at 90 +. (At this point, I'm reminded of an article by P.J. O'Rourke called 'How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink.' I don't think it had anything to do with what I'm talking about but I seem to remember it was a good article.)

However, this is neither here nor there. The point is, today, after one whole year of living back in her native land, I finally let my wife drive us about 15 miles. And I have to say, she did just peachy.

Because the UK is so incredibly anal about handing out driving licenses, we both felt it was prudent that she take lessons and learn how to drive a manual transmission from somebody that didn't have a stake in our marriage (she's only ever driven an automatic. In the States. Where the roads are straight. And any monkey can drive.). I'm sure I could have taught her but the 25 pounds per lesson she pays is a hell of a lot less than the cost of a divorce lawyer we would have inevitably needed after one too many, "Christ! Slow down! You're too close to the edge!!! Stop riding the clutch!" escaping my lips.

So after a couple of hundred quid worth of lessons, I'm pretty sure my wife is capable of driving our car.

As long as I'm not with her or I'm unconscious after falling on my head or too drunk to know the difference.

Well done, sweetie!

The End of an Era?

Some of you may or may not know about the saga of Ceiling Cat.

This is your loss.

Apparently, Ceiling Cat has influential friends in (literally) low places.

It's all gonna end in tears…because…

Whoever wins…we lose

Ain’t 8 Great!

Yesterday, my wife and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary.

As you can see, we celebrated in style with sunflower seeds, Coors Light and a lovely card I made to show my deep, undying love for her.

Who says romance is dead?