Phollower

Anybody Still There?

2010-12-26T22:02:00.002-05:00

I haven't been here in years. So, anyone still get email alerts when I post something?

Nom de Pron

2008-09-29T15:35:00.003-04:00

I needed a recipe today for some tuna steaks I wanted to put on the grill and I happened to have a hunk of ginger root leftover from a recipe I made a couple days ago. So I went to Google and typed in ginger tuna. It struck me as being an awesome porn name.

The Wettest Wet Nurse- Starring: Hugh Jemember and Ginger Tuna

I'd watch that. For about 45 seconds. Then I'd nap.

Sweetcorn

2008-08-14T14:25:00.003-04:00

The title is one word because that's how it's said here in the Midwest.

There's a ton of little stands in Indiana that sell locally grown corn during the summer. That would be sweetcorn to you folks from around here since maybe there's some other kind of corn that you might get it confused with when buying it on the street corner. But there's one that's my favorite. I've never bought corn there but that doesn't stop me from having a preference. Before today, the reason it was my favorite is because there are these 2 really cute girls who work at the stand most days when I drive by. Reason enough, right? But today as I passed they were throwing an ear of corn across the parking lot where their golden retriever would run over, pick it up in his mouth, and come bounding back to do it again. He looked and ran and acted just like our golden, Sam.

I swear, if seeing the joy in the eyes of a golden retriever who's in the middle of fetching something doesn't put a smile on your face, your heart is fucking broken.

And You Thought I Was Scarce Before?

2008-08-02T13:32:00.002-04:00

OK, tomorrow is officially going to be the biggest day since, well, since congress changed the official length of the world day from 22 to 24 hours. I can't remember what year that was.

The curious reader may ask, "Why Phollower?"

The bi-curious reader may have different questions entirely. Like, "Why not, Phollower? You know you want to."

I'm hear to address the curious reader. The bi-curious reader should've gotten to me 11 years ago before I got married.

There are 5 events occurring or possibly occurring tomorrow. In no particular order:

1. My new Playstation 3 is scheduled to arrive. I don't think I need to go into much more detail about the awesomeness of that. It's technically my X-Mas present but, you know.

2. My preordered copy of Agricola (complete with the "preorder exclusive" Animeeples is supposed to get delivered. I ordered the English printing back in December when it was announced and I was really excited to get it. Then it took a few months longer than the original ETA and I got a bit frustrated but now that it's set to arrive I'm totally psyched again.

3. The copy of NHL '08 that I got off eBay (at a bit of a steal, I might add) may be in the mail. NHL '09 is coming out soon but I really want to be able to play hockey with my brother in law who lives in Buffalo. He has '08, it was about $40 cheaper than '09, end of story.

4. Our new copy of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Player's Handbook should get here. That means Sylvia and I won't have to share one anymore and we'll be able to make notes and put in page tabs and be as geeky as we want to be with our own copies.

5. Our co-ed softball tournament starts Monday night. After 11 grueling regular season games where sweat was actually worked up on occasion we've come to what we toil for so hard all year. OK, fine. Every team makes the playoffs and we'll probably be gone by the end of the 2nd week of games (since everybody makes it that far) but I still like to kid myself into thinking we'll get the big trophy this year.

So that's my Monday. Go ahead, tell me that day ain't huge. I dare ya.

Just Passing By

2008-07-28T11:56:00.002-04:00

All right. I make no guarantees I'll be here on a regular basis but I wanted to share this:

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.

Why not?

Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.

That's good stuff right there.

Name Change

2008-06-18T14:00:00.002-04:00

Alright, I'm fully aware I've been ignoring not just my blog but blogs everywhere lately. See I got this new guitar and I've pretty much been playing it during all my free moments. If you click on the "review" button you'll see the color I got too. It rocks. Not in my hands it doesn't (yet) but the guitar itself is really awesome.

As far as the title of this post is concerned, there's been a change made to the name of a popular donut and coffee establishment in order to better represent its true nature. From this day forward it shall be referred to as BadunkaDunkin Donuts.

I'll be back sometime.

If Everyone Else Jumped Off A Cliff...

2008-05-14T23:34:00.004-04:00

Well, since tysgirl and limpy went on vacation I thought I would too. Sylvia and I are heading to Colorado with her dad, his wife, and Sylvia's brother. It'll be a week filled with hiking (Great Sand Dunes NM, Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado State Forest State Park (yes, that's really what it's called)) whitewater rafting class IV and V rapids, camping in a yurt, and generally goofing off.

On a completely unrelated note, The Spousal Unit just asked me why the winner of the Indianapolis 500 drinks milk. Turns out Louis Meyer, who won the race in 1936, drank buttermilk after the race because it was his favorite. The Milk Foundation decided that was too good of a promotional thing to pass up and has made sure the winner has a bottle of milk ever since. Fine, it's a dumb tradition. Whatever. I mention this not because of it's riveting trivia value but because (according to the one online source I happened to see it at) PETA is hoping to stop the tradition. The organization is looking to end the drinking of the milk, claiming it to be a "beverage born out of cruelty to baby calves" and a "racist drink."

Ohhh Kaaay. I'm with you on preventing animal cruelty but, christ, it's fucking milk. And it's racist? Should it be alternated with chocolate milk?

Back to the regularly scheduled banality you've come to expect.

I'll be gone from Saturday til the following Saturday and, unlike other bloggers who set up posts to come up on scheduled days during their absence, I'm just not going to think about you at all. It's not that I don't care, it's just that I really don't care.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go kick a calf in the nuts, just so he knows what cruelty is really like.

Put Me In Coach

2008-05-13T09:56:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow starts our annual excursion into the great world of competitive sports known as co-ed recreational softball. The team Sylvia and I play on consists mostly of people over 35 (some substantially more over 35 than others...) whose primary activity for the year is getting thrown out on their way to first a couple dozen times a summer. Fortunately that describes most of the teams we play against as well. Suffice it to say you're not going to be catching any of our highlights on SportsCenter Thursday morning. In fact catching is something that will rarely occur during our games at all. Thank god for the mercy rule.

For the second (or third?) year in a row I've been tapped to be one of the coaches. I couldn't make it to the team meeting where that was decided thereby ensuring my position as coach since anyone who was there voted against themselves. I was informed there was a fair bit of "Phollower doesn't have a job anymore. He's not doing anything."

So it goes.

Being a coach for adult rec softball really doesn't involve too much besides setting the line-up every week. But that's the pain in the ass that everyone else tries to avoid. See, there are almost always more players than there are positions so some people will only play a half game. As coach I have to decide who those people are. Which, of course, often leaves those people pissed at me even though I do my best to have everyone play the same number of half games throughout the course of the season. I try to maintain the attitude of "If you don't fucking like it, you be coach next year" but I still stress over it every game.

I usually play shortstop for our team (clearly showing where we stand as far as player quality goes) and, even though I know it's god-damn-coed-rec-league softball, I still get as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs before every game. But that's just how I roll. I love playing but am always terrified that I'll be the one that fucks up. Making it more likely that I'll be the one that fucks up. If you don't fucking like it, you be the shortstop next year.

For I'M About to Rock

2008-05-07T14:41:00.002-04:00

Perhaps some of you remember a while ago when I mentioned that I used to be in a band. No? Well, you probably aren't missing much. I wrote (almost) all the songs for the group but only sang, played a little harmonica and shook a tambourine.

I sound kinda gay.

I played guitar well enough to hammer out a chord progression and teach it to the people who actually knew how to use their instruments and then I pretty much got the hell out of the way and let them figure out the details. Well all that's about to change. Albeit very slowly. I start guitar lessons today. I'm hoping to learn to do more than just play the 10 or so chords that I know already. My teacher better be patient. I know enough to have formed a million bad habits but not enough to actually be easy to teach things correctly. I can't read music, I don't know the names of the chords that I can play; shit, I don't even know the names of all the strings now that I think about it. Hopefully the instructor has some good advice and I can learn to solo and stuff.

It would also be nice if Eric is a hot chick. I'll keep you posted.

It Just Rolls Off the Tongue

2008-04-30T12:16:00.003-04:00

We drive down to hockey in Indianapolis with our friend Lucy, who happens to be from France. Lucy is one of my favorite people. She's really fun. Since Sylvia and I are kind and compassionate friends of Lucy's we pick on her accent and the fact that she's a foreigner in general almost constantly. One of our favorite devices is to take something in english and bastardize it so it sounds french-ish. The latest one is our favorite and we've been using it a lot, even when Lucy isn't around.

Ready?

When you would (and normally I wouldn't at all but I mean when someone who is the type of person who would would) say, "Oh SNAP!" try the frenglish "Snappez-Vous!"

It just has a nice ring to it. It'll probably catch on like wildfire and we'll be famous and I'll be able to retire.

Shut up.

The Day the Earth Moved

2008-04-27T12:27:00.002-04:00

I was just recently given permission to blog about this so I apologize for it being a little less current than most of my cutting edge posts.

About a week and a half ago there was an earthquake in Illinois which was felt by quite a few people here in Indiana. It happened at like 5:20am so yours truly slept through the whole thing. Sylvia however was woken up by the shaking of our bed. It wasn't until later that day while she was at work that she learned of the earthquake though. How, you may ask, does a woman get woken up at the crack of dawn by the rumbling of her bed and not know an earthquake occurred? Let me enlighten you, dear reader(s):

Co-Worker: Did you feel the earthquake this morning?

Sylvia: Ummm, no. What time did it happen?

Co-Worker: 5:20 in the morning.

Sylvia : (to herself) I guess Phollower wasn't masturbating.

When she confessed this to me she said that up until then she just figured if I had needed her to be involved I'd have woken her up, so she rolled over and went back to sleep.

I've been trying to take it as a compliment that the movement of tectonic plates could be confused with me spanking the monkey but I'm certain the earthquake lasted a lot longer than I do. And at my age there aren't any aftershocks, if you know what I'm saying.

Gardening

2008-04-24T14:46:00.002-04:00

I was out with the dogs today and noticed the flowers in our flower beds are all blooming like mad in the nice weather we've been having. Reminded me of a joke:

Q: What's better than roses on a piano?

A: Tulips on an organ.

That's all I got. I'm going out for my annual golf outing today though so there's a good chance I'll have an embarrassing story about that. And when I say "golf outing" I mean I'm going golfing. I don't reveal that I'm gay on the 12th tee or anything. Although...

Goliath's Revenge

2008-04-21T09:08:00.002-04:00

The other morning I woke up (which is how I like to start my day), fed the cats, cleaned the litter boxes, then opened the back door to go out with the dogs for a bit. I have a pair of dirty old shoes that I leave on the back porch for trips outside with the dogs which means my first step onto the back porch is done in just socks. On my feet, I mean. I usually wear the traditional loincloth as well. Anyway, as I took the aforementioned stocking footed step I felt a sharp pain in my right foot. What I initially thought might be a big-ass sliver turned out to be a big-ass wasp. And not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. I mean the bee kind of wasp. And, despite overwhelming odds against him, an individual wasp will still try to take down a 210 pound sleepy white guy. And much like the proverbial David, Mr. Wasp struck a crippling blow to the mighty behemoth. Unlike the proverbial Goliath, I got up, grabbed a paper towel, and squashed the little bastard. If only they had paper towels back then the whole Israelite/Philistine thing may have gone down much differently. Alas, the quicker-picker-upper was not to be invented for many centuries so you know how that turned out.

The wasp on the other hand was mashed flat.

But holy crap did that hurt. I believe my exact words were, "Owww! Mother fucker! Holy fucking shit that hurts! God fucking damn it! Jesus fucking Christ!" That's where the whole paper towel thing came in. It wasn't a good start to the day for either of us. Probably worse for him though. Either way I have a sneaking suspicion this little parable isn't going to be amended into the bible. Partially due to my taking of the lord's name in vain and partially due to the fact that "Don't sting the dude that outweighs you by 209.999995 pounds" isn't a lesson you really should need to learn.

Mmmmm... Satan?

2008-04-17T12:21:00.002-04:00

OK, so I haven't felt like blogging, or doing that much with the computer in general lately, so I haven't posted in a long time. Sue me. That's a figure of speech Limpy. Besides, it probably wouldn't be worth the drive to Indiana to get my stuff. We could drink though. I haven't kept up with anyone else's blog either so don't feel like I've been just ignoring you. I'm an equal opportunity shunner.

What got me to post something? A little conversation I overheard at the Factory Card and Party Outlet yesterday. I'm standing at the ginormous card rack looking for some decent (or indecent) birthday cards and there's this lady (mid 40's?) and her two kids (about 10 years old or so) looking next to me. Every once in a while one of the kids will pull a card off the display and say, "How about this one Mom?" During one such episode this happens:

Kid: showing his mother a card with a lady looking into a crystal ball on the front. How about this one mom?

Mom: No way am I buying a card with a fortune teller on it.

Kid: What's a fortune teller mom?

Mom: Something of the devil.

End of conversation.

How can you just leave me and your kid hanging like that? And after all the time I spent talking to Miss Cleo. She never once mentioned her affiliation with Satan. Go figure.

Wishful Thinking

2008-03-21T19:02:00.002-04:00

The other night The Spousal Unit and I were watching the Sabres play the Tampa Bay Lightning and the following was heard:

Rick Jeanneret (The Sabres amazing play by play man): While the Lightning are still mathematically in the playoff hunt they're not realistically in the picture, but they'll be happy to play the role of spoiler in tonight's game.

Sylvia: How come nobody's ever happy to play the role of patsy?

That woman can really crack me up sometimes.

That Cool Refreshing Drink

2008-03-16T22:43:00.003-04:00

A guy Sylvia and I graduated from high school with (yes, we went to high school together but were definitely NOT high school sweethearts) is putting together a list of contact info for the 130 or so people from our graduating class in an attempt to arrange a *gasp* 20th reunion sort of thing. He set up a meeting time and place for anyone who was interested in getting together to brainstorm some ideas about the reunion itself, how to reach more people, and that sort of thing. Sylvia and I live about 9 hours from where we grew up so we pretty much sent him our contact info and left it at that. But the day after the "meeting" he sent an e-mail to everyone on his list so far that basically said, "I showed up, waited around for a while, realized no one else was coming, and left." He then went on to say, "But on my way home I saw the most beautiful sunset over the Niagara River and realized that had I been a minute earlier or later it wouldn't have been as wonderful. So thank you all for making that happen."

Now that's pretty much the epitome of the old saying, "When life hands you a bunch of lemons, make lemonade."

Me? I'd have taken the lemons, cut them up, used them to chase a bunch of tequila shots, and said "Fuck the whole thing."

But that's just me.

We Can't Be Everything To Everyone

2008-03-13T15:05:00.002-04:00

I picked Sylvia up at the airport on Monday evening after her trip to Monterey. I don't remember exactly how it happened but while we were waiting for her bags to show up I did something which caused her to say,

"My book is a lot more romantic than you are."

I wanted to tell her,

"Yeah? Well the chicks in the movies I watch while you're gone do a lot of shit you won't do too but I don't hold it against you."

But I didn't say it because that would've been pretty rude. I have the tact to wait until I get home and can post it on the internet instead.

This God Damn Fucking Piece Of Shit Old House

2008-03-06T20:22:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! Phollower Vila here with today's lesson in home maintenance and repair:

Painting a room is a great and relatively inexpensive way to liven up an area and give it a new look and feel. But when contemplating painting your textured ceiling it's important to know beforehand that the texturing will crumble and fall off. A lot. It will also turn your expensive 3/4" nap rollers into worthless, paint covered pieces of shit. This will happen after about 8 strokes which is enough to make the little bit of painting you accomplished stick out like a sore thumb but nowhere near enough to make you think that you might actually be able to do the job without either buying $150 worth of rollers or spending 3 months washing and drying them every few strokes.

So what do you do about this? Well, this is why I said it's important to have this information beforehand. That way you can tell your wife, husband, partner, parent, landlord or whoever suggested such a stupid thing that they can go fuck themselves. This may result in an argument with the aforementioned suggester but trust me, the marriage, living arrangement, lease, or whatever is just not worth the hassle. If you happen to be the idiot who came up with the idea in the first place (as is the case for Phollower) then you can cut out the middle man and skip directly to fucking yourself.

This has been another helpful household tip from Phollower Vila. We'll see you again next time on This God Damn Fucking Piece Of Shit Old House.

It's My Pie, Kitty

2008-03-05T22:07:00.004-05:00

Yesterday The Spousal Unit left for Monterey, CA for a conference, not to return until next Monday. So I'm a bachelor for 5 days. Doing bachelor type things like... ummm... crap. What did I used to do? Why can't I remember? Wait, I'm sensing a connection. What was I talking about. God, I'm thirsty.

Cotton.

Back to the story: I dropped her and 2 of her students off at the airport at 10:15am and since I (not so) coincidentally had my hockey equipment with me I decided to join in on a game of pick-up hockey that was scheduled at the rink in Indy. I had never played with the group but had heard that the level of play is pretty high.

You can say that again.

A few of the guys had played semi-pro hockey. A few more had at least played in college or in juniors. About half of them were in their late teens or early 20's. Me? I started when I was 30 and am now 37. I also generally play only once a week. It was humbling to say the least. But it was excellent. And I'm rather proud to say that, while it was humbling, it wasn't humiliating. I think I did pretty well for a guy in his late 30's who's played a lot less hockey than any of them. And I don't think I was the worst guy there. But I could be biased.

How Lame Are We?

2008-03-03T13:22:00.002-05:00

There are 5 of us in our town who play hockey in Indianapolis, which is about an hour away. Our friend Wienercats is one of the ones who shares a ride to and from our Sunday night hockey sessions since she plays on our team. Yesterday she was one of the people who drove and I happened to be riding in her car on the way home. We got to talking about cooking and about recipe magazines. She mentioned that she gets Cooking Light and one of the things she likes about it is the cooking tips that it gives, not just the yummy recipes. For example, she said a recent issue discussed the difference between boiling and simmering and how it affects veggies that you're cooking. I thought that sounded like an interesting article too.

It wasn't until I was making Sylvia's breakfast this morning that I stopped for a minute and stabbed myself in the eye for getting so damn old.

How Many Gold Is It?

2008-02-29T13:56:00.002-05:00

The Spousal Unit and four of our friends (Zoe, BP, Knotts, & Knitts) get together most Friday nights to play D&D, Vampire, or the occasional boardgame. Tonight happens to be D&D night and I happen to be Dungeon Master. Settle down ladies, I know you want me. So I sit down to spend a couple hours preparing the newest adventure for the players but before I do I check my e-mail. Often when I do that I look in my Spam folder because the wiener enhancement ads crack me up. Today was not only no exception, it was also incredibly well timed:

Turn your dagger into a broadsword!

Broadsword. A sword for the broads. I get it.

3 of them equal 10

2008-02-27T10:00:00.004-05:00

While we're technically within the city limits, The Spousal Unit and I live in a relatively secluded area. It's on a dead end street with a big, tree-filled ravine in the backyard. The ravine is one of my favorite parts about our house. It provides a lot of privacy, there are tons of animals, and (if I'm too lazy to carry it to the actual poop bucket) I can chuck dog turds down there. I'll sometimes use our poop scooper lacrosse-style and heave them into a steeper area where I never go even when I do climb down into the ravine. But due to my never having played lacrosse (and not being particularly accurate in general) my turd tosses don't always go where I had intended. They occasionally end up hitting (and sticking to) a tree about 15 feet up. Whenever this happens I imagine the squirrels going, "Great. Just fucking great. So much for climbing trees to escape those furry bastards." And by "furry bastards" they mean the dogs. Not 3 week old poop.

And if anyone can figure out what the title of this post means you'll get 20 bonus points.

Category 5 Humor

2008-02-22T22:34:00.002-05:00

So I'm still at my sister & brother-in-laws' house. That would be The Spousal Unit's sister and her husband. Sylvia and I have been staying here and/or at her brother Karrrl's house for the last week while we've been in Buffalo. Yes, we ate wings, duh. The stories are true.

Trapper John & MrsOz (the aforementioned sis and B-I-L) have graced us with 2 nieces and a nephew who are 3 of the main reasons we come here. They're still letting me stay here so I have to make like I adore them. Crap, was that out loud?

Anyway, as the owners of 3 young 'uns they have items around the house that the childless among us just don't regularly need. For example?

Hurricane.

I can't recall trying the stuff but apparently every parent in the country uses it to help their kids when they're teething. The grown-ups use it on the kids who are teething. Not any other incantation of the last sentence. Sylvia loves it. She loves to get it in her throat so she can't feel herself swallow. Hey, we've all got our things. I like watching towels while on acid. Shoot me. And for all you pervs (you know who you are) that swallowing comment was not meant to be gross. I can see your confusion though.

It somehow came up in conversation that they still had some Hurricane laying around and since the youngest is 3 (and they finally figured out that when he puts his wiener in her coochie, kids tend to pop out) they don't need it anymore. Sooooo, The Spousal Unit asked is she could have some.

Of course she could.

MrsOz runs upstairs to get it and upon her return says, and I swear to god this is true,

MrsOz: You have to get this from behind the pharmacy counter and they generally only have one bottle so you don't have a choice on flavor. This one is, and I have no idea why, Pina Colada.

Chock one up for the Pharmaceutical team. Inventing gateway drugs for children of all ages. God bless 'em.

Wing Time!

2008-02-14T15:58:00.003-05:00

The Spousal Unit and I are packing up the dogs and heading to Buffalo tomorrow, not to return until next Saturday. This means of course that we are about to indulge in vast quantities of pizza and wings. For anyone who's never been to Buffalo (and hell, who'd really want to go?) the pizza and wings really are that good. Honestly, food there is better than just about anywhere in the world. It's horrible for you and you'll die of some heart problem by the time your 43 but you gotta take the bad with the good.

I doubt I'll do much blogging while we're gone but I'll probably end up with a few disgustingly cute niece/nephew stories that I'll post. Naturally I'll mold the stories into something disturbing and/or perverted but hopefully they'll be funny.

While we're gone we have some people feeding the cats and the fish (hopefully these 2 tasks will remain independent of one another) so don't get any bright ideas about robbing the house when we're not here. 'Cause really, if you want anything just let us know. I'll be happy to help you carry most of our crap to your car if you'll just take it.

Until then, Phollower out.

Be Mine

2008-02-12T23:08:00.004-05:00

Let me start by saying that The Spousal Unit and I don't do anything for each other for Valentine's Day. Nothing beyond downing a bottle of champaign and fucking that is, so I'm not sure exactly why this bugs me so much:

There's this set of commercials on right now for some jewelery company and they really rile me up. I don't remember the name of the jeweler but the gist of the spots is these guys doing things for their wives/girlfriends that are decidedly unmanly, like painting their wife's toes (and saying they should get an extra coat) and making handmade Valentine's cards (because there just wasn't a card that could express how deeply they feel) and then, after showing the guy doing whatever over-the-top wussy thing he's doing, the narrator says, "...because you aren't that guy, there's So-and-So's Diamonds." It just makes me think, "That's right, don't DO anything nice for your significant other. Just buy her something and wait for your BJ."

I think doing sweet things for my spouse is about the best way to show her I love her and want her to be with me forever.

Then again I could be biased because buying something for Sylvia requires me asking her for money first. And that pretty much ruins the chances for a BJ.

Lunchtime

2008-02-08T16:39:00.000-05:00

The Spousal Unit is on sabbatical this semester. Contrary to popular belief this does NOT meant that she is on vacation. It does, however, mean that she works from home and is around for lunch a lot more than usual. I generally just have something ready for her to eat around 1 in the afternoon but yesterday I decided to give her a few choices.

Phollower: Hey Honey, do you want a BLT, grilled cheese, or a salad with chicken salad on it?

Sylvia: Can I have the salad with chicken salad on it or is that too much trouble?

Phollower: I wouldn't have offered it to you if it was too much trouble. I'd have just given you something else.

Of course, making chicken salad and a nice veggie salad to go with it is more work than the other two, but there's a lot of truth to the old saying:

Q: What do you make for lunch for the wife who lets you stay home?

A: Whatever the fuck she wants.

Shatner

2008-02-08T11:11:00.001-05:00

The title of this post is the past tense of shitner. Used in a sentence:

After 3 cups of coffee and an hour on the road, I stopped at the first outhouse I saw and shatner.

This concludes today's Language Lesson with Phollower.

Since It's Been A While...

2008-02-06T21:59:00.000-05:00

I haven't talked about board games on my blog in a long time and I've been enamored with the one Sylvia got me for christmas so, much to Limpy's dismay...

Notre Dame: A game for 3 to 5 players which takes about an hour. There's a variant for 2 players as well. The recommended age requirement is 10 years old and I'd say that's probably in the ballpark for the youngest player that could learn how to play. I'd maybe have raised the age limit to 12 but I imagine a 10 year old could at least learn the rules if not the full strategy. Then again, I don't have kids so what the hell do I know?

In Notre Dame you're playing the role of a rich Parisian in the 15th century who is helping to beautify the area around the great cathedral. As with a lot of good Eurogames the theme is nice and is implemented well. You spend 9 rounds (broken up into 3 phases of 3 rounds each) playing cards that enable you to perform different actions. The actions can make you money, give you more pieces to put on your board, help fight the Plague, help you earn points faster, etc. The end goal is, surprise surprise, to make more points than anyone else by the end of the 9th round.

Each player has their own little board and it's placed next to a special center piece. You end up with what is more or less a circle shape made up of all the players' boards. At the beginning of the game you shuffle your Action Cards and put them in a face-down stack in front of you. Each player has 9 Action Cards and each player's Action Cards are the same as everyone else's so there's no such thing as a stack that's better or worse than anyone else's. You draw the top 3 Action Cards in your stack and look at them. You choose 1 of those cards to keep and pass the other 2 to the player to your left. The player to your right is going to hand you the 2 cards of his that he didn't want. You then look at the 2 cards he gave you and pick 1 to keep and hand the remaining one to the player to your left. Likewise, the player to your right is going to give you the card that he didn't want to keep. So you end up with 3 cards in your hand but you'll only get to use 2 of them. There aren't really any "bad" cards but some will be more useful to you at some times than others.

There are also a bunch of Person Cards which are revealed 3 at a time at the beginning of each round. At the end of the round you'll have the opportunity to hire one of those Persons to give you a special benefit. The other important thing about the Person Cards is their Plague Value. Each card has between 0 and 3 rats on it and the total number of rats on the 3 Person Cards available in a round determines how bad the Plague will be. If the effect of the Plague in your area of town is too large, bad things happen. You'll lose points & lose pieces from the board. Not nice.

Whoever is going first picks one of the 3 cards they ended up with in their hand, plays it in front of them, and performs the action that the card allows them to perform by playing one of their pieces (called Influence Cubes) onto the board in the appropriate area. As I mentioned, there are 9 different Action Cards. 8 of the 9 allow you to do something in your part of the city. You can make money by playing a piece in your Bank area, help fight the plague by playing a piece in your Hospital area, give yourself more pieces to play by playing a piece in your Cloister House area, among other things. The 9th card allows you to play a piece into the central area called (the surprises just keep coming) Notre Dame. The person to the starting player's left goes next and so on.

After everyone has taken an action, the starting player chooses one of his remaining 2 Action Cards, plays it in front of him, and takes the action that it allows him to take. Each player will only get to use 2 of the 3 Action Cards they started with so as they play the 2nd card they put the 3rd one underneath the 2nd one so no one can see what card they didn't play. Remember, you'll have one of your own Action Cards, one Action Card that the player to your right started with, and one Action Card that the player 2 seats to your right started with. And since everyone has the same 9 Action Cards in their stack it's possible that you could get your Bank card to play and someone else's Bank card to play in the same round. This can be a blessing or a curse. Having 2 of the same card could allow you to make a bunch of cash or stack up a bunch of pieces in your Hospital but it also means you have fewer options on your turn. The decisions can be painful. In a good way.

So after everyone has played a 2nd Action Card everyone gets to hire one of the Person Cards if they want to. And they usually do. The Person Cards can allow you to move your pieces around, get extra actions, eliminate the Plague on you for one round, make you some money or points, and so on.

Then the Plague takes effect. Every player has a Plague Track on their board and it goes from 0 to 9. At the end of the round you have to move the little marker on your Plague Track an amount equal to the number of rats that was on the Person Cards that were available this round. If you'd need to move your marker beyond the number 9 you lose points and a piece off the board. And nobody likes that.

And that's the end of the round. Then everybody picks up the next 3 Action Cards in their stack and you do the whole thing again. After the 3rd round you'll have used up all 9 of your Action Cards and a special scoring round occurs. This is when the Notre Dame space I talked about comes into play. Everyone who put pieces into Notre Dame during this phase (a phase is 3 rounds) gets to split up a bunch of points. The number of points divvied up depends on how many people are playing. And that ends the 1st phase. You then get all 9 of your Action Cards back, shuffle them, put them back in front of you and start phase 2. Phase 2 is 3 rounds long just like phase 1 was. When phase 2 is done you play a 3rd phase (just like the first 2) and after phase 3 you see who made the most points.

And that, in a nutshell, is how you play Notre Dame. I'm not one to go into every last detail about a game in my reviews so I'm not going to talk about all the different Action Cards and Person Cards and their specific abilities. You can click on the above link and check out the much more in depth reviews at BoardGameGeek if you want more info.

Why do I like it so much? Well, it's not overwhelming with the number of choices you have but it is filled with a lot of tense decisions. Do you keep the Notre Dame card you just picked up as one of your 3 Action Cards and get into Notre Dame early? Do you pass your Notre Dame card, keep a different Action Card, and hope someone else passes you their Notre Dame card later? You seem to always have cards to choose from that you can come up with a good idea for but you can't keep all of them. And even the ones you do keep you only get to play 2 of the 3. There's enough interaction between the players that you don't feel like you're playing multi-player solitaire but you can't do a whole lot to totally screw someone else over either. You can take your best guess as to what card will help the player to your left the least and pass that one to them but you need to balance that with making sure you keep the cards that help you the most. And the Plague is very nicely implemented. It's tough to keep the Plague below 9 but it's definitely not impossible. But in order to do that you need to allocate some actions to fight the Plague and while you're doing that you're passing up on other actions that could make you points or cash or whatever.

Notre Dame just feels very well balanced to me and you rarely feel like you're in a hopeless position. And even when you do get creamed you can look back at the game and say, "If I had done X instead..." or "If I had decided to use this card..." and come up with a plan that would've been more effective. And those are signs of a great game. There's a very high replayability as well since the order of your Action Cards is always different, as is the order of the cards that get handed to you and which Person Cards are available when. I've played it about a half dozen times and it keeps getting better. I can't wait to play again.

Where'd the Time Go?

2008-02-05T14:38:00.000-05:00

The Spousal Unit and I received an e-mail yesterday from a guy we went to high school with who's trying to put together a list of contact info (e-mails etc) for the good old class of '88. It sounds like he's hoping to arrange a bit of an informal 20 year (holy crap) reunion type event. Sylvia and I graduated together and were good friends in high school but didn't become friends with benefits (as the kids say) until 10 years later. We dodged our 10 year reunion but are considering going to this one. It's tough though since it's usually a 9 hour drive and with me dragging my feet for 500 miles it could take significantly longer.

Sylvia is a beautiful woman who doesn't need to be concerned about such things but immediately says, "I'm going to have to go on a diet if we're going to our reunion."

I didn't say it out loud but I was thinking, "You're concerned about your weight? I only have 4 months to actually do something with my life before then."

More Sitcoms

2008-02-04T14:58:00.000-05:00

The Spousal Unit wrote on her blog about what our friend Zoe would be like if she were a character on a sitcom. Well, I borrowed Zoe's Dremel tool over the weekend (I haven't used it yet so I don't have a post about that but since I should be able to learn to type with 8 or 9 fingers I imagine one will show up) and a new role of hers occurred to me, should the Sheldon thing not pan out: Lesbian with power tools who lends them to her effeminate male friend who was tragically born without the power tool gene. We're such cliches.

She's the multifaceted lesbian.

I'm the effeminate male.

The Emperor's New Undies

2008-02-04T13:02:00.000-05:00

Feel free to stop reading if this is clearly one of those TMI moments:

I haven't worn underwear in about 15 years. I just stopped a long time ago for some reason (which escapes me now but since I was 22 I imagine it somehow involved a girl and getting laid). Well, I decided to get a couple pairs primarily because doctor's visits are just really awkward without under garments. So I'm trying them out. If anyone else is ever in this situation let me offer one bit of advice:

When you stand up after going to the bathroom there's a chance that your new skivvies will remain around your ankles when you grab your pants and cause you to lose your balance and fall into the bathroom door. There's also a chance you're not an idiot and will manage to deal with the clothing change more gracefully than some.

This public service announcement brought to you by Haines and a generous gift from the Head Trauma Association of America.

Blessings, Chickens... Whatever

2008-02-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

I got an e-mail forwarded to me the other day and it contained a bunch of pictures of families from various countries and they were each sitting around piles of how much food their family consumes in a week and a figure of what that food cost. Naturally the countries you'd expect to have big piles of food and large grocery bills do; America, Germany, etc. And as you go down the list the countries get poorer and the quantity of food is reduced even though the size of the family often increased. By the end there's a family of 6 in Breidjing Camp in Chad with a tiny pile of grains and few dinky veggies whose weekly groceries cost them $1.23.

After you look at all the pictures there's a little note that says, "I don't know about you but right now I'm counting my blessings!"

Now I could be completely misinterpreting the meaning of the little note but I think the general gist of it is that you should take a minute and say, "Thank you, God, for loving me enough to give me a comfy life and thank you for giving the shaft to someone else." I'm not a religious person so maybe I just don't get it but how do you thank your deity for putting you on the "good" list (through no actions of your own) while he lets others suffer (through no fault of their own)? The Spousal Unit and I attribute much of our position in the world to having had good luck in the birth lottery. We could just as easily have been born in Chad. It's not blessings, it's not God smiling down on you, it's not the good grace of the Lord. It's just fucking luck. And you aren't special just because you got really lucky. As did I. And I'm no more special than anyone else either.

OK. Your soapbox.

I'll Just Risk It

2008-02-01T14:20:00.000-05:00

Our town got hit with about 7" of snow last night and this morning. For our unprepared mid-west town this is quite a bit. So The Spousal Unit and I turn on our local CBS affiliate to check the little ticker thing that goes across the bottom of the screen and gives updates on the closings of schools, businesses, and what have you. Well, the ticker is there alright but Dr. Phil is the show that it's running over. After about a minute of watching the closing reports the ticker still hadn't gotten through anywhere near the entire list but we just couldn't fucking take Dr. Phil anymore so we changed the channel. I looked at Sylvia and said, "If I'm not sure someplace is open I'd rather just drive there and see what happens."

The Shack

2008-01-31T14:23:00.000-05:00

So I stop by Radio Shack today because I wanted to see how cheaply I could buy an FM antenna for a radio we have so it can catch the signal our satellite radio puts out from the other room. It's got a spot to plug an external antenna into it but it's sans antenna. Anyway, the chubby yet surprisingly creepy associate showed me a fancy one that was like $39 or something way more than I wanted to pay but had I needed to I could pick up Good Morning Greenland. Then he offers this bit of info:

Chub E. Associate: The best thing to do though is to connect your FM input to the wiring of your house, thereby turning your entire electrical system into a big antenna.

Phollower: Impressed and intrigued by this seemingly brilliant idea: Wow, what do I need to do that?

Chub E. Associate: You're on your own on that one. You could totally blow out your radio.

Phollower: halfway to the door: Ummm, thanks.

You see, I know nothing about electronics. I'm thinking there's like a little adapter or something. Silly me.

I was 17?

2008-01-28T23:29:00.000-05:00

My friends Zoe and Knitts each wrote a post with the theme of "A Letter to 17 Year Old Me." And by "Me" I mean "Them". They didn't write letters to me when I was 17. Their posts were really great and if you know them (and even if you don't) you can appreciate their sentiments. My late teens and early 20's were a bit hazy to say the least so my letter to 17 year old me would go something like this:

Dear 17 year old Phollower,

Ummm, yeah. Just do whatever the hell you feel like doing for the next 10 years. By some miracle you'll end up marrying a great woman who'll take care of you and let you stay home and clean. Don't ask me how. I don't remember much of it.

Not quite as sentimental but just as honest.

They Grow Up (and Become Weight Obsessed) So Fast These Days

2008-01-28T14:15:00.001-05:00

Here's a little story from my sister-in-law MrsOz (who happens to be beautiful) involving her and her 5 year old daughter (Daughter #2):

They're watching TV and a commercial for Slim-Fast is on. The commercial makes some sort of reference to stomach shapes or some shit.

Daughter #2: Mommy, I think you should get Slim-Fast.

MrsOz: Really? Don't you like my belly the way it is?

Daughter #2: Well I love it, but other people might not.

Stuff like that is hilarious when they're not your kids. It's probably pretty funny even when they are. After you get done weeping from self-loathing at least.

I'm HUGE!

2008-01-18T10:26:00.001-05:00

I got a spam message this morning informing me that I can have the biggest cock in town... TODAY!

I didn't read the whole thing but in my case I'm fairly certain that involves killing roughly 51,000 other men. And that one "chick" who lives under the bridge.

You Again?

2008-01-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to put new drain baskets in our kitchen sink. This should, theoretically, be a pretty simple job. There's basically one big piece that screws into the rest of the basket and holds it in place. So unscrew it, put a little plumber's putty down, and screw in the new one. Easy-peasy, right? Well, thanks to the fine work of the house's previous owner (who I've bitched about previously, much to both of my readers' amusement) the drain baskets weren't just screwed in, they were also glued, complete with having all the threads on the basket being filled with glue. Yes, the same threads I was supposed to unscrew with. Ergo, they didn't unscrew as planned. I ended up having to use a hacksaw to cut them off. Of course the underside of the kitchen sink isn't the most convenient place to try to use a hacksaw so it totally sucked.

As with all my projects, there's a 3 trip to Lowe's minimum. And I always seem to get the same cashier during every visit . After the third time I stop in to buy some new tool or supply or whatever I figure the cashier must be thinking, "You have no fucking idea what you're doing, do you?"

The which the answer is, of course, "No. And do you sell Band-aids?"

Dicks

2008-01-14T12:21:00.000-05:00

A little something a friend discovered:

If you're at work and surfing the internet for sports equipment, the address for Dick's Sporting Goods is dickssportinggoods.com. It is NOT dicks.com. I repeat, it is NOT dicks.com Notice the lack of hyperlink. There's a reason for that. You've been warned.

Sylvia made a blog!

2008-01-08T11:27:00.001-05:00

The Spousal Unit finally decided that she should be able to harass me in a relatively public forum. You can check it out here.

I'm gonna be in big trouble.

Monkeys

2008-01-01T14:01:00.001-05:00

As I've mentioned before, The Spousal Unit and I (and as I've also mentioned before, mostly The Spousal Unit) run a fantasy hockey league. In our league you re-pick your team every week from 12 lists of players. Just for fun we pick a "random" list of players each week which we refer to as "The Monkey". Mostly we do it so you can feel really stupid for spending a couple hours picking players only to be beaten by a primate with just slightly less hockey knowledge than you have. Sometimes we roll a d20 (that's a 20 sided die for you non-D&D types) and sometimes we have people who don't follow hockey make picks based on some theme. Sylvia, myself, Zoe, and BP teamed up on the last couple monkey picks and this is what we came up with for a couple of the lists:

Week 12: D&D Theme

Winger #1: Sharp (CHIC) Oooo boy, that sword is SHARP!
Winger #2: Perry (ANA) …to block an attack from that sharp sword!
Winger #3: Lupul (NSH) What you look for when the DM tells you that you ARE NOT allowed to do something (see C1 slot for more info).
Winger #4: Satan (NYI) It just fits with the theme, right?
Center #1: Arnott (NSH) What the DM says when you ask if you ARE allowed to do pretty much anything you REALLY want to do - like have a baby dragon
Center #2: Legwand (NSH) He has some kind of wand. Failed my "Knowledge, Arcana" check so I'm not sure what it does.
Defense #1: Ranger (TB) D&D'ers will recognize this as a player class.
Defense #2: Burns (MINN) ...as a result of failed reflex save as a target of a fireball spell
Defense #3: Spacek (BUF) "You failed your spacek and are eaten by a cloaker."
Goalie #1: Ward (CAR) …a glyph of warding (special spell for the non-D&Ders)
Goalie #2: Miller (BUF) Every podunk village you go through has one of these. They are generally useless, but you visit them anyway.
Goalie #3: Fleury (PITT) With the sword, the parrying, the devil, the wand, the fireball, the cloaker, and the glyph, that was a fleury of action!

Week 14: Dinner at a fancy restaurant (the player lists changed so you'll see some players showing up in different lists than they did in week 12)

Winger #1: Stillman (CAR) That stillman cheese is quite sharp!
Winger #2: Cammalleri (LA) The fried cammalleri is delicious.
Winger #3: Perry (ANA) A scoop of perry's ice cream is great with the apple torte.
Winger #4: Tanguay (CGY) Would you like a Tanguay and tonic?
Center #1: Briere (PHIL) A warm briere is excellent with some crackers and fruit.
Center #2: Cullen (CAR) You can choose from a multitude of cullen-ary delights.
Defense #1: Kaberle (TOR) A bottle of Kaberle goes well with cheese.
Defense #2: Campbell (BUF) You will not find any Campbell's soup.
Defense #3: Schubert (OTT) Try the homemade raspberry schubert for dessert.
Goalie #1: Giguere (ANA) Another fine cheese offering.
Goalie #2: LeClaire (STL) Oooo I love chocolate filled leclaires!
Goalie #3: Sabourin (PITT) Maybe a bottle of Sabourin instead of the Kaberle?

Yes, we're dorks. Yes, we love hockey. Yes, we'll do it again. Don't make me put the foil on.

Ta Daa!

2007-12-11T15:13:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm alive. And pretty well too, if I do say so myself.

Where the fuck have I been? Well, it's more a matter of what the fuck have I been doing. Just before Thanksgiving Sylvia and I decided to get a saltwater aquarium. More on that later. We wanted to put the aquarium in our living room in this spot where we've had these cabinets that we both hated. We've been dancing around getting rid of the cabinets for 6 years now and finally had a good enough reason to do it. So I spent Thanksgiving (after making a freaking excellent feast for the 2 of us) tearing the cabinets out of the living room. I spent the next 10 days, more or less, remodeling the area, repairing drywall, replacing subfloor, painting, installing laminate flooring and trim and moving the new aquarium into its rightful place in our home. This first picture is from back when we bought the house so it still has the previous owners' stuff in it but basically it went from this:

To THIS:

Not bad, not bad. We're really happy with how it turned out. And the aquarium has been one of the coolest things ever. So far there are just "live" rocks, a few snails and 4 hermit crabs in there. But the rock comes with all kinds of little critters living on it and we see new ones just about everyday. The rock is also changing color all the time as different types of algae grow and die back. Very entertaining. Around the end of January the tank will be ready to have its first anemone and fish added to it. A few months after that we can move in starfish, shrimp, and coral. But they all need to be added little by little. I'll keep you informed of the transformation. Hopefully a little more regularly than I have been.

Check Please

2007-11-25T11:34:00.000-05:00

After Sylvia's women's hockey team practice last week we got to talking with their coach and Sylvia mentioned that she's pretty scared of getting hit into the boards. Coach told her it's not bad at all since the boards really absorb most of the impact. Well Sylvia was a bit skeptical but at the next practice says:

Sylvia: I need to have you check me into the boards sometime so I'm not afraid of it anymore.

Phollower: OK. Do you want me to do it now or surprise you?

Syliva: Surprise me. (pause) I sense a Limpy moment coming.

For those of you not familiar with Limpy, he's a 4-time father-of-the-year (as voted on by an independent panel of his kids every December 23rd after being reminded that Santa only comes to kids' houses who love their parents very, very much) and the above link takes you to a post involving him throwing a baseball at his son. It's not his most recent link so be sure to read the rest of his stuff. He cracks me right up.

Quatrogenarians Almost

2007-11-17T10:09:00.000-05:00

Sylvia and I drive to her women's hockey team practice on Tuesdays and we give a ride to another girl (we'll call her Jeunefils) who lives in our town and plays on the team too. It's about an hour ride so it only makes sense to carpool. She's quite a bit younger than us (I think she's 20) and last Tuesday as we were on our way to the rink she asked Sylvia how old she is:

Sylvia: 37.

Jeunefils: 37! Oh my god! I had no idea you were that old!

Phollower: Yeah, it's amazing we can still get around at all huh? I think we may have a couple more years in us though.

Kids.

10 Tired Legs

2007-11-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

The Spousal Unit had to go to a conference for 4 days so I took the dogs camping at one of my favorite parks: Forest Glen County Preserve near Danville, IL. I love camping this time of year, when it's only 45 or 50 during the day and low to mid 30's at night. I'm a hot sleeper and I sweat like a Vietnamese seamstress during the summer so late fall temps are perfect for me. Sylvia, however, thinks I can shove cold weather camping up my ass which is why I do this sort of thing when she's out of town. Nobody likes anything cold shoved up their ass.

We got there around 3pm on Wednesday and after setting up the tent (ok, I did the setting up while the dogs sniffed around for the feces of various woodland creatures) and getting camp all ready we headed off to hike for about an hour and a half. That left us just enough time to get the fire started, cook and eat dinner & walk up to the ranger station to sign in before dark. Surprisingly we were the only tent campers and had the place to ourselves. Go figure.

After a quick breakfast this morning (and it was quick mostly because it was too cold to just stand around camp) I donned the pack filled with water and lunches and the 3 of us were off. For a place in central Illinois Forest Glen is pretty rugged and awfully hilly. But 4 hours later and I think we had put in about 10 miles give or take a bit. We saw a ton of deer, hawks and squirrels but not another person. It was perfect.

The dogs haven't moved since we got home.

MrsOz Steals a Car

2007-11-12T12:44:00.000-05:00

So The Spousal Unit and I went to Buffalo last weekend for a wedding reception. I think I mentioned that. After the reception a bunch of us went to my brother-in-law Karl's house to do some more drinking and other nefarious activities. We were staying with Sylvia's sister MrsOz and her husband TrapperJohn and they were kind enough to drive. More specifically, Trapper John was kind enough to drive us in their Ford Explorer or this never would've happened. We were leaving Karl's house and MrsOz hops into the Explorer parked in the driveway and kind of huddles up since it was pretty cold that night.

We had parked on the street.

TrapperJohn: (Opens the door to the Explorer that MrsOz was in) "That was perfect Honey. Now let's see if we can do it into our car.

MrsOz: Oh. You know, I was wondering why there was a coffee card on your dashboard. You don't even drink coffee.

So off we went. I'm not sure why she said it but MrsOz asked TrapperJohn if he was ok or if he would like her to drive home.

Sylvia: Ummm, sorry MrsOz. Only people who can get into the right car on their first try get to drive.

Fortunately TrapperJohn agreed and we made it home safely and lived happily ever after.

Every Time

2007-11-09T10:04:00.000-05:00

A wise man once said: "No matter how often you let yourself and others down it's always just as disappointing."

Don't ask. I'm just thinking out loud, as it were.

Niceness Personified

2007-11-06T17:08:00.000-05:00

The Spousal Unit and I went to Buffalo for a wedding reception this past weekend. We stayed, as usual, with The Spousal Unit's sister, her husband, and their 3 kids. I love them all. Since we're the caring type who like to keep young minds (and their parents' minds) devoid of any sort of actual thinking we brought our Wii with us. Well, the 2 nieces (aged 7 and 5) were playing Wii Tennis. Every time your player wins a point these little music notes appear over his head (indicating great joy and happiness I guess) and every time you lose a point this squiggly cloud sort of thing appears over your players head (indicating great frustration and sadness I suppose). After Niece #1 lost a point the following occurs:

Niece #1: "Wuja," (that's what she calls me. I believe it's Polish for "uncle" and is pronounce Voo-Ha) "Why does that cloud show up over my head when I lose a point?"

Phollower: "Well Niece #1, it's because you're upset that you didn't win."

Niece #1: "Why can't I just be a good sport?"

Phollower: "I don't know, Niece #1, I don't know."

She's about the sweetest kid ever.

Recycling, Sort of...

2007-11-01T21:51:00.000-04:00

In case there are any ladies out there who don't already want to live with me here's one more way that I make The Spousal Unit's life wonderful and entertaining.

We keep our cats' dishes and litter boxes in the basement in our pantry. Next to the food dish is a bucket filled with cat food. Ironically enough it's labeled "Cat Food". Next to the litter boxes is a bucket that we scoop the dirty litter into. That bucket is labeled "Used Cat Food".

That type of hilarity can happen at any time when I'm around.

Trick or Treat

2007-10-30T21:19:00.000-04:00

So, here it is:

(You can click on it to make the picture bigger)

Pretty scary huh? That's me under there. It's not a real mummy. Although I do get the urge to eat human flesh while wearing the outfit.

Lucky for Sylvia, huh?

Boo!

2007-10-26T14:44:00.000-04:00

I just finished my Halloween costume but I can't post a picture of it until after Zoe and BP's Halloween party tonight so they don't see it ahead of time. Everybody knows it's bad luck if lesbians see your Halloween costume before the actual event. Everybody also knows it's really good luck to have cute, lesbian friends so you need to balance the two types of luck carefully.

Google Photos

2007-10-22T12:21:00.000-04:00

I don't know how many of you use Google Desktop but it has a little gadget in it that goes through your "My Pictures" folder and randomly selects photos and shows them in a little frame along the sidebar as a slideshow. Since I'm always thinking of The Spousal Unit and her happiness I stuck our porn folder in there so now along with pictures of family, friends, pets, vacations and what have you pictures of hot, naked chicks show up. The porn folder is actually an "off-site backup" that I made for a customer at Local Computer Store where I used to work. That girl had LOTS of pictures in the vein of the Suicide Girls- the goth stuff that Sylvia and I enjoy so much. Since the porn folder contains such a large number of photos, the majority of pictures that show up are of hot, naked women. Normally this is fine. But what tends to happens is:

Phollower: Ohhh, hot naked chick... wow, another hot naked chick... man look at her, that's an excellent tattoo... another hot naked chick... AHHHHHHHHHH 5 year old niece! I feel so dirty. Man that's disturbing. I really should remove the porn from the "My Pictures" fol... whoa, hot naked chick...

And She Keeps Me Why?

2007-10-17T10:00:00.000-04:00

This morning as Sylvia is getting ready to leave for work she walks into the kitchen to find me cleaning some spots off the kitchen wall; a spray bottle in one hand, a paper towel in the other:

Sylvia: Hey Honey, what are you cleaning the wall with?

Phollower: This new Method Pink Grapefruit cleaner that I got at Target yesterday.

Sylvia: Really? How's it work?

Phollower: You spray it on the wall and then you wipe it off.

pause

Sylvia: I'll be home at 5:30.

Well I thought it was pretty funny.

The Monkey

2007-10-15T15:25:00.000-04:00

The Spousal Unit and I (ok, mostly her) run a fantasy hockey league. The NHL.com website used to run a league similar to ours but they stopped doing it. We liked the format enough that we decided to just do it ourselves. The way it works is there are 12 different groups of players and each week you need to pick one player per group. So there's a Center #1 group, a Center #2 group, a Winger #1 group etc... Then, you score points based on how well the players you chose did during that week. What makes this league different from most fantasy leagues is several people playing can pick the same guy from a particular group. So if I pick Sidney Crosby as my Center #1 choice there's no reason you can't pick him too. Of course no one knows which players any of the other people in the league picked until after the deadline. We decided that at the end of each week we would post the optimum line-up for the previous week (who you should've picked in each group in order to get the highest possible score) so you could see how many points you could've scored if only you were any good at it. We also decided to have what we call "The Monkey" make basically random picks each week so when The Monkey beats you you'll feel especially stupid. We're just self deprecating that way. The first couple weeks we just rolled dice for The Monkey so his picks were completely random but for some of the weeks we're going to have a guest Monkey. It'll be someone who knows nothing about hockey and they'll have to make picks based on a theme of their choosing. This week's Monkey is our friend Knitts and she chose as her theme "The Players Whose Names Sound The Most Like Porn Names". This is what she came up with:

Center Slot 1: (hehe...center slot...) R. Brind'Amour as the last part of his name looks like an intentional misspelling of "amore".

Center Slot 2: M. Modano, Modano's Hoes, it rhymes and shit!

Winger 1: J. Cheechoo, Lips get all sexy, puckery-like on the last syllable "choooooooooo"

Winger 2: Easy choice, A. Semin. Please tell me I don't have to explain myself on this one.

Winger 3: M. Satan Gah! Satanic pr0n!

Winger 4: D. Vyborny Vyporny or Vyhorny isn't such a stretch either.

Defense 1: A. Zhitnk Vowels <> sexxxxy

Defense 2: J. Boumeester Bow Mister!

Defense 3: J. Corvo Sounds like a good brand of alcohol.

Goalies 1: N. Backstrom He specializes in being on the bottom.

Goalies 2: R. DiPietro Da, di pet!

Goalies 3: M. Legace Reminiscent of "legacy" which sounds like a good word to use in a porn star name to me.

So that was her Monkey list for this week. Ah, that Knitts. What a horn-meister.

She's So Good To Me

2007-10-13T11:09:00.000-04:00

Conversation on Friday morning as Sylvia and I are waking up:

Sylvia: I'm so tired.

Phollower: Well you can sleep in as late as you want tomorrow.

Sylvia: And maybe while I'm sleeping you could go to the bakery and get some scones?

Phollower: That would be very nice of me.

Sylvia: Actually, since I'm letting you go it would be very nice of me.

Phollower: You're right. And would you let me make you a cappuccino tomorrow too?

Sylvia: I'd even let you make me a cappuccino today.

Phollower: You're so good to me. Thanks Honey.

Sylvia: You're welcome.

Appletoe

2007-10-11T12:54:00.000-04:00

Every year Zoe and BP come over to help The Spousal Unit and I make applesauce. BP pretty much loves to operate the apple peeler/slicer thingy. It does a nice job but can sometimes make a mess and cause some apples slices to end up on the floor. When this happened this past weekend someone told BP to be careful where she stepped or she'd get apples all over her foot. That led to the following:

Phollower: Would that give you appletoe? You know, sort of like cameltoe?

BP: I bet it would but in the back. And it would look like this (BP holds up an apple showing the bottom side of it like so):

Phollower: Oh my god. Can you imagine how tight your pants would have to be to give you appletoe?

Zoe: They'd also need to lift and separate.

Phollower: Like a Wonderbra.

BP: Cameltoe in the front, appletoe in the rear.

And so most things we do together go. I must've nearly cried 3 times during the day just thinking about it. I'm going to try to keep the appletoe thing going. It just cracked me up so bad. I'm giggling right now.

Fantasy

2007-10-09T13:50:00.000-04:00

The Spousal Unit and I participate in a couple fantasy football and fantasy hockey leagues. Sylvia has had a pretty bad habit this year of picking running backs and then having them promptly get injured. So she's been joking about taking bribes for who's career she should end next since she's clearly a jinx.

Well, in the one fantasy hockey league we play in (and actually run) everybody picks one player from each of 12 different lists each week. So you'll choose one guy from the center #1 slot, one guy from the center #2 slot, etc. This week I chose Jason Blake as one of my players. About 4 hours after the deadline for picking players the news comes out that he was just diagnosed with Leukemia.

Take that bitch! Sure, you can hurt a few guys but I can give them cancer. Who da man?

Turkey Day

2007-10-03T12:44:00.000-04:00

I take the dogs (and Sylvia if she's home) for hikes at this excellent state park near our house. The park has a lot of places designated as prairie restoration areas so they're basically big fields with lots of tall native grasses and wildflowers and such. So I was there a week or two ago and our dog Marisol jumps off the trail and into the grass and scares the crap out of this turkey which was hiding just off trail. The bird of course starts making this loud gobbling noise, scaring the crap out of me, and goes flying down the field. It was pretty cool.

So for the rest of the day I referred to Marisol as my Beast of Birdin'.

Get it? Like Beast of Burden except it's Birding said with a twag? You know, Birdin'?

Oh nevermind.

Pass the Butter

2007-09-27T13:42:00.001-04:00

You know how sometimes something will happen and you think, "That would be a great scene for a movie"? No? Well sometimes that happens to me. Last night was one of those times.

We (a bunch of people from our softball team who got together to celebrate one of the kid's birthdays) were talking and Sylvia and I brought up the fact that we had recently gotten some popcorn still on the cob from our CSA. We didn't know what the heck to do with it so we asked the others. We got to discussing whether or not it needed to be dried first which naturally led to how do you dry it if it needs it. The joking (I hope) suggestion of throwing it in the dryer was mentioned. Which then led to the potential of it also popping in the dryer. Which led to:

Remove the lint trap, dump a cup of popcorn in the dryer, set it on high and sit outside by the dryer vent with a big bowl. (And something to catch the popcorn in too. Ba-dum-bum. That was for you Zoe.)

C'mon, that would be a funny scene if put in the right hands.

Assedness

2007-09-26T15:17:00.001-04:00

I think I've mentioned before that the guy who lived in our house prior to us did a lot of the home maintenance, repairs, and such himself. He was also not a contractor. He may have contracted a few things in his day but they were probably more of the venereal sort. So a lot of the stuff he did was half-assed.

Me? I try to do as much as I can around the house but if I can't do it at least three-quarters-assed I hire a professional.

Good Old Mexican Know-How

2007-09-20T10:12:00.000-04:00

Have you ever done anything under the notion of "How hard could it be?"

Have you ever done anything under the guise of being lazy but had it turn out to be way more work than simply doing it the way you should've just done it in the first place?

This is a story about a young boy named Phollower who managed both these things in one fell swoop.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Phollower. One day he was getting ready to make the steak fajitas that the lovely Princess Sylvia requested for her evening meal. Phollower then realized that he stupidly forgot to buy the flour tortilla shells when he was at the store earlier. Fortunately for Phollower the grocery store is only 5 minutes from his house so getting the shells would be a piece of cake and take no time at all. Unfortunately for Phollower he decided to look in his copy of "How to Cook Everything" and saw that in the directions for making home-made tortillas is the statement "These are easier than they sound." Phollower thought making tortillas by hand would be a great way to show Princess Sylvia how much he cares about her and save him a trip to the store as well.

Poor, stupid, foolish Phollower.

It turns out that Mexican families generally have a dozen kids because it takes 12 people about 2 1/2 hours to make enough tortillas to feed a family one meal. Tortillas also do not, much to Phollower's surprise, end up actually being round when they're made by hand. They generally end up being shaped like a European country. Say, Romania or Poland. Before Limpy or Zoe get any bright ideas I'll tell you up front that even poor Phollower managed to keep any of them from looking like Italy. Bosnia & Herzegovina however, represent.

Also much to Phollower's surprise (and Princess Sylvia's delight) his tortillas came out tasting excellent. So excellent in fact that the lovely Princess Sylvia requested that Phollower always make the tortillas from scratch.

Oddly enough this entire episode has caused Phollower to believe in Jesus. As in, "I believe in having Jesus make my tortillas." In this case Jesus is pronounced hey-seuss, as if you wanted to get your copy of Green Eggs and Ham signed.

But of course Phollower agreed to make Princess Sylvia's tortillas because he loves her so much. And she lets him stay home all day and he needs to pretend like he does something productive.

And they lived happily ever after.

The End.

Coffee anyone?

2007-09-18T14:14:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago The Spousal Unit and I ordered a new espresso machine and burr grinder. The grinder was back ordered but we got the espresso/crack machine. We've been constantly edgy for just over a fortnight. The machine came with a sample of Lavazza coffee which was ok but not great. We both love Starbucks so I picked up some Starbucks French Roast at Target and ground it there. We tried it for a couple days and really didn't like it much so I picked up some Starbucks Cafe Vienna Bold which is absolutely friggin' excellent.

This left Sylvia asking me what we're going to do with the rest of the French Roast. It's ground too finely to use in our french press and it's nowhere near as yummy as the Cafe Vienna so I'm tempted to just throw it out. But then I think of all the sleepy children in Africa and I just can't do it. Damn my social conscience.

If anyone wants 10 oz of finely ground French Roast just let me know.

Why I'm 100

2007-09-13T19:33:00.000-04:00

I'm coming out of Target today and in the parking lot is some dude in his early 20's in some pseudo-muscle car sitting and waiting for his girlfriend or whoever to come out of the store. But he's not just parked in a spot waiting; he's parked diagonally across 2 handicapped spaces. And it pissed me off so freaking bad.

Back when I was a kid we parked our horse and buggy the right way and used a nice clove hitch to keep the horse restrained and we liked it just fine.

Man I'm getting old.

He didn't get rich by throwing his money away

2007-09-11T22:18:00.001-04:00

My previous post (see below) and the comments therein reminded me of another story:

About 15 years ago I used to work at this little Mom & Pop grocery store called Sunshine's Supermarket. The owner of the store was this older jewish guy named, no shit, Mel Sunshine. On my way to work I passed this excellent restaurant/diner that had a kick-ass breakfast special: 2 eggs, homefries and toast for 99 cents. Add a cup of coffee and you had a yummy start to your day for under $2. Believe or not they have that special to this day. How they can afford to do it, I have no idea. It was one of those places where the people who worked there remembered how you liked your eggs and since I usually sat at the counter there was a cup o' joe waiting for me before I even sat down. Anyway, I told Mel about the great breakfast there and how even after leaving a tip the whole thing cost me $3.

A little quick math and Mel nearly lost his mind.

Mel: "You know, since your meal comes to $1.75 you could tip a lot less than that."

Phollower: "Yeah Mel, I know. Now leave me alone, I'm not done rubbing the expiration dates off these canned goods like you asked me to."

No kidding there either.

Sunshines was actually a nice place to work. I worked in the deli/meat dept and the job was easy enough that I could come to work totally baked (and did so daily). And Mel, albeit "thrifty", was genuinely a nice guy. Then again I never told him I used to bang his daughter.

Still not kidding.

RB #5

2007-09-11T10:10:00.000-04:00

I went out to my favorite all you can eat Chinese buffet for dinner last night since The Spousal Unit had her book group. I noticed that I'm apparently the only person in town who leaves a tip for the poor asian girl who has to bring people their root beer and pick up their filthy plates. Which reminded me of a little story.

I was probably about 15 at the time and I went to McDonalds with my grandfather. When we got our food my Gramps tipped the cashier. I remember being so embarrassed at the time. I mean, c'mon, who tips the cashier at McDonalds? But now I look back and I think that was pretty great. The look on the cashier's face was utter confusion but I bet the gesture made her day. Not that I'm going to start tipping at Mickie D's or anything but you get the point. Not the point that I'm a cheap bastard, the other point. Oh forget it. Let's just say Gramps was a great guy who I miss a lot and leave it at that.

The Dichot 'O Me

2007-09-10T14:13:00.000-04:00

As you may know, I've recently become a stay at home househusband. A kept man if you will. And I will. While this means I get a lot more cleaning and such done it also means I have more time to do other household projects that I've been putting off under the guise of not having time to do them.

For example, we have this bay window in the front of our house. It actually has 3 windows in it. Of course the dogs love to lay in the window so they can protect us from the many predators that lurk nearby; like the mailman, squirrels & the old dude next door who likes to sit on his porch. Such monstrosities need to be barked at "viciously" on at least a daily basis in order the keep our house safe. Of course security like this has its price and that price would be the screens in those 3 windows. Dogs have claws and screens don't like claws very much. So I bought some "pet resistant" screening that's supposed to be tougher and withstand said claw attacks better. I bought the screen, oh, 9 months ago or so. Today I finally got around to putting it in.

The first step in replacing the mesh in a screen is to remove the screen from the window frame so you can actually work on it. With a lot of things like this there's usually a trick of some sort to get the screen to come out. You know, like you have to turn the screen a certain way or fit a peg through a hole in just the right manner. Something that you could do easily enough if you tried but would be unlikely to do accidentally. Maybe I missed a memo or something but the trick to my screens is apparently to bend the frame a bit and then just yank the fuck out of it.

Done.

Then you have to pull the old mesh out of the frame and put the new mesh in. Putting the new mesh in is theoretically pretty easy. It just involves laying a piece of screen a little bit bigger than the frame on top of it and then holding it in place with a thin strip of rubber called a spline. The spline gets crammed along with the new mesh into a groove and the fact that the spline is a little bit thicker than the groove holds the mesh in place. But here's where the dichotomy that is Phollower rears its ugly head. I'm sort of anal retentive about things. Stuff has to be just right sometimes. I'm sure the breathtaking beauty of my blog removes all doubt of this fact. The catch is that I'm just slightly less handy around the house than Stephen Hawking. So I've got my inability to complete the most menial of handyman jobs clashing violently with my insistence that it be done perfectly. Of course sooner or later these two unlikely bedfellows meet at a point I like to refer to as the "Jesus fucking christ you've been screwing around with this stupid piece of shit for 4 hours" point. Ironically enough 4 hours seems to be this point no matter what the project is. Also ironic is the fact that a screen that needed to be bent and have the fuck yanked out of it in order to be removed is not in any better shape after having me replace the mesh in it. It's also more difficult to push the fuck back into a screen than it is to yank the fuck out of it. But push I did and miracle of all miracles they're all back in there, they look ok, and I only scraped the paint off one window frame.

I'll touch that up right away, don't you worry.

Call Me Cap'n

2007-09-09T09:57:00.000-04:00

So the fall session of the beginner hockey league that The Spousal Unit and I play in starts tonight. Which is awesome. And for the first time ever Zoe is going to play too. Which is also awesome. And this year the powers that be managed to rope yours truly into being the captain of one of the teams. Now before you go getting all hot and bothered about my new-found power keep in mind that pretty much I take attendance so I can set up the lines and that's about it. But all things considered it was sort of flattering to be asked. I've been in the league for 5 years now and didn't know anybody (or how to skate very well either) when I started so it's nice to know I've made a name for myself.

And that name would be Cap'n Phollower.

I Bet It Is

2007-09-07T11:08:00.000-04:00

The Spousal Unit and I received an order yesterday from one our favorite stores. It's a specialty food store in Buffalo, NY (our hometown if you're unaware) called Premier Gourmet. They carry a whole slew of items made in and around Buffalo that we just can't get in Indiana. Things like Chiavetta's Barbecue Marinade, Weber's Horseradish Mustard (which is easily, and I mean easily the greatest horseradish mustard in the solar system), & Weber's Hot Texan Sandwich Sauce which is great on pretty much anything. They also roast their own coffee and we order enough of it to give Juan Valdez's trusty mule a back ache just thinking about it.

Sylvia decided to surprise me and ordered a little treat called Buffalo Wing Nuts which, if you were too lazy to click the link, are spicy coated peanuts. They are mighty tasty.

Oh, about the title of this post. I looked on the back of the Buffalo Wing Nut package and it lists this as allergy information:

This product is packaged on equipment that packages peanuts.

Is that because they ARE peanuts or is there another, more mysterious reason? I'm sure they print that on everything for legal reasons because some dude in Nevada had a conniption after not being told that his peanuts may contain peanuts but, gee whiz, let Darwin do his thing here.

The Weigh I Roll

2007-08-31T15:26:00.001-04:00

The Spousal Unit and I got a new, digital bathroom scale to replace our old, inaccurate analog one. It's smaller and nicer looking than the old one so we leave it out on the bathroom floor instead of hiding it in the closet. My favorite use for it so far? I like to weigh myself before and after taking a dump, you know, just to see how I did. I'm sure the novelty of it will wear off eventually but for now I'm averaging about a pound and a half with 2 pounds being the current high score.

Hey, it beats fishing it out and putting it on the kitchen scale.

The Best Decade

2007-08-22T11:07:00.000-04:00

Today is The Spousal Unit and my 10 year anniversary. And it's been the most wonderful decade of my life. I look forward to the rest of our lives together more and more everyday. I love her with all my heart and I hope she keeps me around forever.

RB #4

2007-08-21T22:25:00.000-04:00

Once when I was about 7 or 8, making my younger brother in this story about 5 or 6, I stood by and watched as the next door neighbor kid (who would've been about 13- and I was terrified of him) fed my little brother graham crackers with dog poop and goat poop on them and told him it was peanut butter and raisins.

No kidding.

RB #3

2007-08-21T09:40:00.000-04:00

I've been watching a fair bit of the Little League World Series and it reminded me of my glory days on the diamond. Once I hit 2 home runs in one inning. That was pretty much the pinnacle of my sports career. So it's been downhill for about 23 years now.

Random Bit #2

2007-08-19T20:16:00.000-04:00

One time when I was like 14 or so I was home alone (insert me doing the Macaulay Culkin pose here) and I was playing with hairspray and a lighter. You know, making big flames shoot out of the old school aerosol hairspray containers. Well, the screen in our front storm door had a bunch of flies and other insects on it and putting 2 and 2 together I came up with some number that was clearly not 4. I fired up the old hair spray container and proceeded to burn the crap out of all the bugs. After a few seconds I noticed the screen was turning a sort of grayish color. I thought the screen was just hot or something so I touched it to see how hot it was.

It just crumbled.

Turns out not only will a hairspray flamethrower burn the crap out of bugs but it will also turn a standard house screen into a screen shaped bunch of ashes.

If either of my faithful readers have fathers then they can probably relate to the pile of shit I was going to be in when the aforementioned father got home from work. Lucky for me I was able to find a spare screen, replace the charred one, and promptly took it about a quarter mile behind our house into this grove of trees and buried it under a big rock.

My dad's been dead for a little over 10 years now and it wasn't until then that I felt truly in the clear on this one.

The end.

This Will Probably Get Old Fast

2007-08-17T09:54:00.000-04:00

OK, in the name of posting a little more often and also doing something on my blog that's "interesting" (and potentially even factual) I'm going to include some random bit o' information about me and/or things I've done in the next bunch of posts I write. The bits are in no particular order unless you consider train of thought an order. The posts may or may not include other stuff depending on how high I am. I mean motivated.

Random Bit #1:

From 6th grade all the way through high school I, Phollower, played the cello in our school orchestra. I did not play it well. As with most things I did it half-assed and never practiced. But think of how many hot viola players I nailed. If you guessed "one" you just missed. And by Price is Right rules you're out.

NE, The Wii, & Me

2007-08-15T18:29:00.000-04:00

The title of this post happens to include the 3 main reasons I haven't posted anything lately. So, dealing with them in order:

NE: That happens to be the abbreviation for Nebraska. What, pray tell, does Nebraska have to do with anything? Well, that happens to be where The Spousal Unit's dad and his wife live and we decided to go out there for our vacation. We spent about 9 days there and it was just excellent. How could a big chunk of flat corn field be excellent you ask? It turns out that Nebraska, especially western Nebraska, is anything but flat. Want proof? Check this out:

That was our campsite for a couple nights in the Soldier's Creek Wilderness. That place was beautiful. There was a whole lot of nothing out there. My favorite. Want more evidence? OK:

That's more of the Soldier's Creek Wilderness. But as excellent as the trip was I do have one suggestion for anyone thinking of heading out that way: Don't do it in August. Way too hot. Mid 90's, blazing sun, all sand, not much shade. But our campsite did have a nice tree that we sat under and drank beer in the afternoons. Great way to wait for the day to cool down.

Here's another great place we visited:

Scott's Bluff National Monument. We hiked to the top and even saw remnants of the Oregon Trail near the base. Very cool and great views. Don't believe me? Fine:

If you look closely you can see the road and one of the tunnels you'd use if you wanted to drive to the top. But what fun is that?

The Wii: I refuse to take the blame for this. I'm dumping full responsibility on our friends Knotts and Knitts. See, they have a Wii and were kind enough to invite us over to try it out. I believe there's crack in the wireless controller because we went out and got one a couple days later. It's pretty much the coolest thing ever. If you've never tried one you have to go out right now and meet a 13 year old (or in our case some other childless couple who spends a fair portion of their disposable income on fun stuff) so you can give it a shot. It's the best thing to happen to video games since weed. I guess weed probably came first but you know what I mean. Sylvia and I have wasted a lot of time playing with the Wii (which sounds dirtier than it is) over the last week or so and that's reason #2 for my lack of posting.

The third reason is Me. I'm just fucking lazy.

DVD'oh

2007-07-26T16:26:00.000-04:00

The Spousal Unit and I have started subscribing to Blockbuster Online for our movie viewing pleasure. For those unfamiliar with it, it's just like NetFlicks except it's Blockbuster. That's exactly like how the Vanilla Frosty at Wendy's is just like the chocolate except it's vanilla. Anyway, last night we sat down to watch Mean Girls featuring, among others, Lindsay Lohan. I didn't make a link to her because if you don't know who she is than you probably don't have an internet account or an interest in super-hot drug addicts. I mean, super-hot recovering drug addicts. Whichever. We get about 5 minutes into the film and the DVD starts kinda skipping around a little, missing a minute or so, coming back on for a minute, then pausing for a second; the kind of stuff that happens when anything is passed around through the general public who clearly have no idea how to not let their kids ruin everything. I stop the movie and take a look at business side of the DVD and it's just scratched all to hell. This leaves me with one burning question:

Can't a 36 year old pervert and his wife sit down to watch a bunch of smoking-hot high school (supposedly) girls bounce around for an hour or two without it being such a hassle?

Geez.

Free Baseball

2007-07-26T09:33:00.000-04:00

I was out in the yard today and I realized I didn't get the mail yesterday. I open the mailbox and to my great excitement there's an ad from DirecTV announcing a free mid-season trial of the MLB baseball package!

And it runs from July 12-18.

Ummmm, yeah. That's either some sort of fucked up marketing or bad calendar skills. You decide.

The Return of Rowsby Woof

2007-07-24T15:22:00.000-04:00

The Scene: I'm outside with the dogs this afternoon. I'm sitting in a lawn chair and Sam is busy bringing me his tennis ball so I can throw it to the other side of the yard so he can bring me his tennis ball so I can throw it to the other side of the yard so he can bring me his... (you get the idea) for about the 487th time today. Marisol is wandering around sniffing everything as if it has somehow changed, yet again, since she was out 3 hours earlier. She's also spending a fair amount of time, as usual, looking through all of the fences. There's chain link around one side and the back while the other side is mostly a tall, wooden privacy fence with a section near the house that's made up of narrow slats so you can see the side yard when you're sitting on the deck.

Suddenly I hear the unmistakable sound of dog hitting the ground from a bit of a height. I turn around to see Marisol on the ground in the side yard, regaining her footing and making a b-line toward the side of our house. Now she either fit through the slats in the fence (which I would've bet money was impossible when comparing the size of the dog to the size of the slats) and jumped about 3 or 4 feet to the ground or she went over the fence (it's about 3' tall) and landed 6 or 7 feet below. If I had to guess I'd pick "through the fence" but I can't rule either option totally out.

What she's making a b-line toward is this little rabbit who lives under our deck. I first noticed him when we got back from Buffalo a couple weeks ago and he was just a tiny thing. He's now up to a respectable "small". He's started to get pretty comfortable with me being around and even let me walk right past him while he was sitting and eating clover. He kinda paused for a minute, said, "Oh, it's just you." and went on nibbling.

Well, the bunny heads for the safety of the under part of the deck which is protected by some lattice boards that the dog can't get through.

The bunny didn't make it.

Marisol grabbed the bun-bun in her mouth and shook him a bit. I'm yelling at her to drop it which, after what seemed like forever but was probably 2 seconds, she finally did. I open the gate, run down the stairs, grab Miss Deathfangs, and shove her ass back into the backyard.

But she didn't kill the bunny. She had just broken his back legs. One leg was trying to shuffle itself along and the other just dragged along behind at this sickening angle. He crawled the last foot or so to the safety of the lattice. He was in rough shape. His front end looked fine. His paws were going, his eyes were bright; if you had only seen the front 4" of him you'd never have known anything was wrong. But his back end was, in my medical opinion, really fucked up.

What was I to do? How many options are there, really? Clearly, he wasn't gonna make it. He probably wasn't going to die in the next day, maybe not for a few days, but even if he could drag himself back out to eat, sooner or later (probably sooner) it was going to do him in.

So I cut his head off with a shovel, turned away as his decapitated body made its final kicks, and threw him into the ravine with the same shovel that ended his life.

You just shouldn't have to do shit like that. Or at least I shouldn't.

Fucking dog.

McGruff would be ashamed

2007-07-22T22:07:00.000-04:00

So I can park here all day and maybe have to pay a whole $5? This town is tough.

Hit by a Pirate

2007-07-18T09:45:00.000-04:00

The Spousal Unit was involved in a car accident yesterday. She's fine. The car got pretty banged up though. She was stopped at a traffic light and the lady coming up behind her took one eye off the road for a few seconds and, next thing you know, Sylvia's got a banged up rear end.

Rear end of the car, Zoe.

Why do I say the offending driver "took one eye off the road"? Because, it turns out, she's blind in the other eye.

No shit.

Blind in one eye and not watching the road with the other. Good combo. Since it's not bad enough to just have no depth perception you better not watch where you're going either.

Aaaargghh, matey. Ya best be movin' yer car out of me way or you'll be walkin' the plank. Right to the insurance office. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jesus Christ.

WTF?

2007-07-17T14:49:00.000-04:00

So today I'm washing our shower rug. You know, the thing you put in front of the tub to step on when you get out of the shower so you don't get water everywhere. It gets done washing in the washing machine and I look at the tag to see if it can go in the dryer. Turns out, yes, tumble dry low. It also says:

DO NOT DRY CLEAN

Who is this warning for? Who the fuck dry cleans their bath mat and who would buy a bath mat that is dry clean only?

Jesus Christ.

I don't mean he would, I mean "Jesus Christ" as in "Jesus Fucking Christ is anybody really that attached to their bath mat?"

Hittin' the Trail

2007-06-29T20:28:00.000-04:00

I'll be hiking on the famed Appalachian Trail from tomorrow (June 30th) until next Friday (July 6th). It's the annual Father-in-Law, Brother-in-Law, & Friends trip. We're meeting up with a good friend who is thru-hiking the whole 2160 or so miles from Georgia to Maine.

That's officially far.

He's been covering about 25 miles a day and actually just completed what is called the "Maryland Challenge", which is to hike the entire 41 miles of trail through Maryland in a 24 hour period. He got up at 1 in the morning, hiked at night until about 5 when the sun came up, and reached PA around 8 PM.

That's officially fast.

And crazy.

And when I thru-hike the AT I'll try to do it too.

We'll be covering between 8 and 10 miles a day with him.

That's officially reasonable for us.

He's going to feel like a snail. But we're bringing him a big bag of freshly baked cookies so he'll forgive us.

Until next weekend, Phollower out.

Kid's Meal

2007-06-26T13:00:00.000-04:00

So The Spousal Unit and I are in Buffalo visiting our families and goofing around for a couple weeks. Last night my sister-in-law MrsOz made one of our favorite dishes, Venison Schnitzel. It's basically venison filets which are breaded and lightly fried served with rice and a sour cream/ dill sauce. MrsOz generally serves it with corn as well. As dinner time was approaching Kid #2 tells her mom that she wants venison but no schnitzel. It turns out that this means all she wants is the breaded venison, the rice, the sour cream sauce and the corn.

If you're scoring at home that's everything.

I'm not sure what part of the meal she thought we were leaving out by not including the schnitzel but if telling her she's getting something different from the rest of us is what it takes to get her to shut up, stop crying and eat dinner I'm all for it.

There's No Place Like Home

2007-06-18T08:32:00.000-04:00

The Spousal Unit and I are heading back to Buffalo for a couple weeks on Wednesday. There will be a tenure party for Sylvia, much eating of wings, drinking of beer, and then I'll be hitting the AT for a week with my father-in-law, brother-in-law and a couple friends. One of my buddies is thru-hiking the trail this summer and we're meeting up with him for a week near the NY/PA border. It's my dream to thru-hike the AT some year as well so I'm pretty excited to get to see the famous White Blazes for the first time.

I'll try to do a couple posts from Buffalo. Try to contain your enthusiasm.

Stiffening Up

2007-06-14T22:35:00.000-04:00

As we're watching TV this evening a commercial for Cialis comes on. It's one of the typical Erectile Dysfunction commercials where the couple is taking romantic strolls, going out for ice cream, picking flowers, you know the crap I'm talking about. The narrator is going on about how with Cialis you can get a stiffy for 36 hours or something. The Spousal Unit says,

"You know what would really help with getting a hard on? Some foreplay. More making out, less walking around."

Amen sister. I'm pitching a tent already.

Time to Goa

2007-06-13T10:07:00.000-04:00

That's right. It's time for everybody's favorite post topic: Boardgames!

I've gotten a chance to play quite a few new games since I talked about boardgames last but I'll only mention one in this post. First of all, I don't have time to write about all of them. And second, Limpy and everyone else with any self respect have stopped reading already. But for those of you who care or simply have nothing else to do with the next 3 minutes of your life, here you go.

The item up for review is Goa. In this game you play the role of a company in the early 16th century attempting to gain the most fame and fortune by trading spices, building ships, settling new lands, and all the other stuff you'd expect a fledgling trading company to do.

The game is played over 8 rounds with each round having an auction phase and an action phase.

During the auction phase each player gets to pick a tile from a little grid full of tiles to put up for auction. Being the winning bidder on a tile earns you things like spice plantations, ships, colonists, extra actions, etc. Whoever is the starting player gets to auction not only a tile but also a special chip that shows who will be the starting player next round. Winning that chip also gives you an extra action card which is perhaps the bigger reason to bid on it. If you win the bid for an item that someone else has up for auction you pay them. If you win an item that you have up for auction you pay the bank. So you have to really want one of your own items in order to win it because you not only pay the bank, you also miss out on the profit you would've made when someone else pays you. There were 4 of us playing so after the 5 things got auctioned off (one tile from each of us plus the starting player's bonus chip) we moved on to the action phase.

Each player has a board (called a "progress chart" or something like that) which shows how proficient he is at various tasks. Things like building ships, harvesting spices, taxing, settling new lands, and going on expeditions. Each player gets at least 3 actions with which they can do a couple things. They can choose to complete one of the tasks I just mentioned (I guess that's actually 5 different options) or they can advance themselves on the progress chart thereby improving their ability to perform those tasks in the future (and gaining valuable victory points). Advancing the progress chart is where the real points are made. At the end of the game (after the 8th action phase) you get a number of bonus points determined by how far you got your progress chart advanced in each task column. You also gain extra turns if you get ALL of your task columns advanced certain amounts. There are bonus cards to be gained by being the first player to advance a specific task to a high level as well. So there's a nice balance between wanting to move an individual task up the chart quickly (for the bonus cards) and wanting to move all of your tasks up evenly (for the extra turn). Of course there's a lot more to it than that but this is the general idea.

Goa is an absolutely excellent game. There is very little time when you're not doing much especially if I manage to take my turn in a reasonable fashion. The game feels "tight" the whole time, like you always have a chance to be in the hunt for the win. It really keeps you thinking and changing your strategy based on what the others are doing. Read the Boardgamegeek reviews and articles for more astute and detailed observations. I can't wait to play it again.

A few of the other new games I've gotten to play recently:
Zombietown (Fun and light but a rather poorly written rulebook. We did a nice job "fixing" it though.)
Shogun (All I can say is, "Wow")
The Princes of Florence (One of my new favorites)
Ricochet Robots (Sylvia is really hot on this one)
Taj Mahal (Another excellent game. I know I've said that a lot but I've gotten to play a lot of winners lately)
BattleLore (A well made 2 player battle game that I will never be good at. I'd play it again though.)

There are probably some others too.

Boy I'm a dork.

Naball

2007-06-05T22:33:00.000-04:00

So The Spousal Unit and I are sitting and watching the French Open tennis coverage and they're doing a little story about Rafael Nadal. Suddenly Sylvia pauses the TiVo and says,

"Either something is dislodged or he is really huge."

She rewinds it a bit and replays a section. At one point Nadal is hitting a ground stroke and, if you happen to be looking at his sack, it appears that he's totally sporting a woodie or has a promising porn career when his tennis one ends. It turns out that he had a ball (tennis, that is) in his pocket but I couldn't help but say,

"Nice to know what you were watching."

In her defense, it did look like a giant dick until you paused it, but still...

Why?

2007-06-03T09:43:00.001-04:00

Party Girl asked me in a recent comment for a little more detail as to why exactly I decided to quit my job and be a stay at home husband. The Spousal Unit said she'd love to read the answer to that as well which surprised me a bit because I thought she had a pretty good grasp on it already. But anyway, here goes:

I hate going to work. I hate waking up in the morning and knowing I have to go do something I don't want to do (and really don't care that much about) for 8 hours. I hate how it looms over me for the entire weekend, ruining even the days that I don't have to go. Not that my job at Local Computer Store was terrible or anything. I worked with nice people, I learned a lot, I was an integral part of the company; I just didn't want to be there.
But taking care of the house, cleaning, cooking, doing yard work, laundry and what have you; now that's work I can really get behind. It's done directly and only for me and The Spousal Unit. And I like doing those things. I don't just mean I tolerate them. I mean I honest to god like to do them. For us. If I had a job as a maid doing those exact same tasks it would suck. Does that make any sense?
I'm also much more secure as support staff. I've been a manager at past jobs and hated it. I'm not good at being responsible for others. I'm not comfortable running someone else's business. But taking care of things for my family, I can do that. I want to do that. I want Sylvia to not have to worry about anything at home so she can do her job. She loves her job and helping her do it as well as she can is important to me. Having her do well at work is also beneficial to our family financially and, of course, that's nice too. So I feel like I'm helping to do my share and filling a role in the household.
I also value free time more than just about anything. Time when we can do whatever we feel like doing at the moment. Want to go camping this weekend? OK. The lawn's mowed, the laundry's done, the house is clean. What's to stop us? Want to sit in the backyard and read all Saturday afternoon? Why not? Things can wait until Monday. It's not like I'll have to be at work or anything. I love that freedom.

I hope that sheds a little light on it. I imagine I'll think of more stuff later. If you have any more specific questions I'll be happy to answer them as best I can. I guess the long and the short of it is: Sylvia makes enough money to support both of us, I can do everything at home to support both of us, we each enjoy the part we play and are happy as all hell with that part. Who could ask for anything more?

Dinner conversation

2007-05-31T14:06:00.000-04:00

As both of you know, I recently quit my job at Local Computer Store to be a full time house husband. As such, one of my main responsibilities is doing the cooking. This is good for two reasons. First, I like to cook. Second, unless the recipe's main ingredients are cheese and macaroni (not necessarily in that order) it's best if Sylvia leaves the preparation to someone more capable. Like my 6 year old niece, for example.
OK, I'm exaggerating a bit. But you know what I'm saying.
So I'm preparing dinner last night (Curried Shrimp with Mint, if you care) and I go into the other room to get something. When I come back Sylvia is standing at the cutting board mincing garlic. I just stand and stare at her until she finally looks up:

Sylvia: What? Can't I help?
Phollower: You don't see me going out and getting a job, do you?
Sylvia: Are you telling me I should just go in the other room and watch Reba?
Phollower: Yes. Yes I am.

And it was so. And the dish was served over white sticky rice and all was well.

Being retired is hard

2007-05-29T22:09:00.001-04:00

No Zoe, I did not say "being retarded is hard". I bet it is though.

The first 5 days after quitting my job I spent most of my time hanging out with The Spousal Unit so it didn't feel much different than a regular vacation. But today she had to go back to work. I woke up early, made her breakfast (not like that Zoe, I made breakfast FOR her), packed her lunch box (stop it Zoe), gave her a kiss and shoved her working ass out the door. I expected the bon bon truck to arrive shortly after she left but it must've gotten bad directions or something. So I spent the day spreading mulch, cleaning the bathroom, going to the pet food shop, stopping back to Local Computer Store so I could pick up my last paycheck and try to fix the problems my replacement created (which I'm doing my best to not care about), buying plants for the garden, taking care of the dogs, getting stuff ready for our softball game, shopping for the in-laws anniversary gifts (you'll never guess what we're getting them...ok I'll tell you, games!)... Shit damn, I had a lot to do and didn't get anywhere near as much done as I wanted.

Still beats the hell out of working for a living.

This is gonna be awesome.

Guess Who!

2007-05-28T22:23:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know. It's been a while. I know I said I'd blog more after I quit my job but The Spousal Unit was kind enough to take the first few days of my retirement off with me and we've been so busy screwing around that I just hadn't gotten to it yet. There's been a pretty good amount of playing with the dogs, drinking, playing games (including a brand new one she got me as a retirement gift which I'll tell you more about later), drinking while playing games, you know the sort of stuff I mean.

A while ago we bought a pretty nice electronic dart board and a couple evenings during our little vacation we played a bit. After we had played for a while and had gotten fairly drunk Sylvia throws a dart and misses the dart board completely. The dart (these are plastic tipped, mind you) manages to stick into the drywall next to the dart board bringing about this conversation:

Sylvia: Hey, don't I get something for that?

Phollower: Ummm, yeah. Spackle.

I just crack myself up sometimes.

I'll be a better blogger now. Promise.

I did it!

2007-05-08T10:56:00.000-04:00

Today I turned in my letter of resignation at "work". My last day at Local Computer Store will be May 23rd.

I was really nervous when talking to my bosses. I felt kinda bad actually. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to leaving work and getting started with my life as a kept man but I've been there for nearly 6 years and they've always been good to me.

But I did it, it's done, and in 2 weeks I'll begin life as a full-time homemaker.

And Sylvia is as excited about it as me.

I will be removing stuff from my "work" computer as I can before I leave so I apologize if I'm even more neglectful of my blog than usual. But after the 23rd I should have a bit more free time. And so should Sylvia. And life will be good.

The Real Reason

2007-05-01T09:48:00.000-04:00

OK

So chicks universally dig me, right?

And I, like nearly every other male, dig the idea of a threesome with a couple of those chicks, right?

The Spousal Unit explained to me that this is the real reason lesbian couples exist. It's not because they're interested in life-long partnerships with someone they're attracted to who loves them. It's because women want to be prepared for their chance at a threesome with me. I mean, when your number is called you'd hate to be stuck looking for a third, right?

Makes total sense, right?

S-E-C-O-N-D-R-O-U-N-D

2007-04-24T09:13:00.000-04:00

A long time ago, back when they sucked really bad and had for quite some time, the Buffalo Sabres finally made it out of the first round of the playoffs. I guess it was around the late 80's somewhere. The Sabres' play-by-play announcer Rick Jeanneret (who is easily the best announcer in the universe) asked in his standard high pitched burst of excitement, "How do you spell 2nd Round?" so I thought I'd help him out with the title of this post.

The Sabres start their 2nd round series against the NY Rangers tomorrow night and I'm pretty excited. I fucking hate the Rangers and I can't wait to send them packing. The Sabres will have knocked both NY teams out of the playoffs and there's a good chance they'll have to get past New Jersey before (dare I say it?) making it to the Finals. There's gonna be tears all along that section of the East Coast and I'm gonna be handing out hankies. With little Sabres heads embroidered on them.

GO SABRES!

Ramen

2007-04-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

I've eaten a lot of Ramen Noodles in my day. Back when I was in college (more acurately, when I was of college age and my friends and housmates were in college and I was working at a supermarket making a whisker over minimum wage and smoking a whoooole lot of weed) I ate Ramen pretty much everyday. Several times. Or so. I mean, they were literally like a nickel a pack. I still eat them today, which is a long time past college age, though the price has skyrocketed to nearly a dime a pack if you watch for sales on the big multi-pack. Whenever I'm in a hurry and don't have leftovers from the night before to bring for lunch it's a quick trip to the pantry on my way out the door for a pack of good ol' Maruchan. In fact I've eaten them the last two days. Why do I mention all of this? Because I'm still not sick of them. Except the shrimp flavor. That shit's nasty. That's all I wanted to say.

Why not?

2007-04-16T12:04:00.000-04:00

They make Bow Tie Pasta, right?

Why no Tae Bo Pasta?

Listen.

2007-04-13T09:13:00.000-04:00

Billy Pilgrim's dad died yesterday.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, my favorite author Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday, a few weeks after suffering irreversible head injuries due to a fall in his home. Billy Pilgrim was a character in one of his most popular books, Slaughterhouse-Five.

I don't think I've ever cried over a stranger dying before. Not when any actor has died, not when any artist died, not even when Joey Ramone died. I guess a little of my tough outer skin went with him.

So it goes.

And So It Begins

2007-04-11T11:30:00.000-04:00

It's the time of year I've waited through 82 regular season games for. The NHL playoffs begin tonight. My beloved Buffalo Sabres finished the season with the best record in the NHL and home ice advantage throughout the playoffs. Their first round match-up against the NY Islanders starts tomorrow night.

Rarely are the Sabres one of the top teams after the regular season and I think this might be the first time they were THE best team. So I have high hopes for them. The Sabres have never won The Stanley Cup and with how good they've been this year I can assure you that tears will fall if they don't reign supreme. I will also invent several new vulgarities and at least one of our cats will pay the ultimate price for not helping sufficiently. I'm looking at you Stewart. Any excuse could end that little guy's breathing days.

Man I'm nervous.

Go Big Red

2007-04-05T09:11:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine is the guy who wears the cardinal outfit as the mascot for the Arizona Cardinals. Yep, the NFL team. Well, really he's a friend of my little brother but I know him well enough that I'm comfortable with saying that I'm friends with Big Red. Anyway, there's a poll going on through azcentral.com where people are supposed to vote for their favorite Arizona Pro Team mascot. I don't know if he gets anything for winning but he asked for the support of his friends so I'm doing my part. Currently the Phoenix Coyotes mascot is leading the way but Big Red is in a pretty close 2nd. C'mon people, you can do it! You can vote once a day or if you're feeling resourceful (and bored) you can go to your internet options, delete your cookies, and vote multiple times! Not that I would endorse such behavior. That would be like cheating. But cheating for a friend. And that's forgivable. And I promise not to tell.

Go HERE, click on "Best Pro Team Mascot" and then vote for Big Red.

Thanks for your support.

Yeah, I rock(ed)

2007-04-03T11:43:00.000-04:00

So, remember how in my last post I mentioned that embarassing stuff about me was coming soon? Well, here goes:

Back in the mid 90's I was in a band called "The Willies". We played pop-alternative stuff, you know, Ramones and Jesus and Mary Chain rip offs. We played around Buffalo and a little bit elsewhere but we were basically just a local bar band. We played almost all original music. I was the singer/songwriter and wrote just about all of the songs. You're probably thinking, "That's not all that embarassing. People have probably forgotten all about it by now." True. But my brother, who was the guitar player, has posted some of our songs to an accessible site on his computer. So the embarassing part is that I'm going to post links to some of my favorites. These links will go to his home computer so it takes a minute to download the songs. Literally a minute or so. You'll just see a blank white screen for about 60 seconds but then the Quicktime "Q" will show up and the song will start. Let me know what you think. I'm still available for weddings, showers, bar mitzvahs...

These were on our CD:
My personal favorite: Candy
Sylvia's favorite: Save Me
Our "ballad": You're Lucky Too

He's got others listed on his site but a large number of the links don't work anymore. Like I said, it's been a while. That should give you an idea though.

Quit laughing.