CD Roulette

I’m a big fan of purchasing music online. I like the fact that I can stream just about any album beforehand, determine which songs I like, and then cherry pick them from ITunes. Never more do I have to by an album that has exactly one good song. (I’m thinking of Willie Nelson here, if it’s one of his better albums.)

Despite these benefits, there is still something I miss about buying physical CDs. I always enjoyed fumbling with the packaging in the car for ten minutes until I finally got it out. I liked opening the case and smelling the new CD case smell. I liked pulling out of the parking lot, putting in the CD, and discovering each and every new song, while all the while hoping that I hadn’t purchased a lemon album. (Willie!) Maybe I’m weird, but that just made me happy.

So, occasionally, I still pick up an album at the store. I usually reserve it for artists where I know most of the stuff is going to be good. But, once in a while, I’ll still take a flyer on an unknown artist, just for old time’s sake.

My latest attempt at this was David Nail’s debut album, which I picked up on my way to the U.P., based on the potential of his song ‘Red Light’. Unfortunately, it was a big swing and a miss. It was typical contemporary country music. Overproduced, with only the barest hints of traditional country instrumentation, along with just about every song containing multiple, loud, electric guitar solos. There were a few good songs in there somewhere, but they were all lost in the noise.

Still, it was worth a shot. It’s always fun when you get lucky and strike gold. Although, in this case, I should have bought a Willie CD instead.

Dealing With The Post-Christmas Blues

There is always a letdown once Christmas is finished. The presents are all unwrapped, the living room looks like a tornado just hit it, with flecks of wrapping paper still floating in the air, the trillions of calories of food have all been eaten, and you are sitting in an easy chair wondering just how on earth you managed to eat so much in such a short time.

You then start looking ahead to the dark, dreary months of January and February, which are punishment for all of the fun you had on Christmas. You think about the short days and the weight you have to lose. Soon, you start to feel a little down.

But fear not! You just need to think of the positives of Christmas being over. They should be enough to get you through the immediate post-holiday letdown period and give you the momentum you need to roll into spring.

And, since I’m feeling generous, I’ll help you get started:

• You won’t have to hear SheDaisy sing their annoying version of ‘Deck The Halls’ on the radio anymore. (Plus, there is a much better chance you’ll hear ‘Amarillo By Morning’ now.)
• The Super Bowl is coming fast.
• The stores will be less crowded, and you will have no real need to go there anymore, anyway.
• My birthday will be here soon. (Not very subtle, I know, but still, it needed to be said.)
• You no longer are required to be cheerful to everybody to show your holiday spirit. You can now resume ignoring them because they annoy you!

Unfortunately, this all may be outweighed by the fact that American Idol will probably start up soon. Ugh. Now I’m depressed.

Merry {bleep}mas!

What a great song. Too bad it's based on the truth:




Also, it just seems to me like some songs just don't need a Christmas version:



Well, Merry {bleep}mas everybody!

Dang it.

Weekend Metrics

Sometimes all it takes is getting away from it all:

Number of days spent in Wisconsin: 0
Number of times internet was used: 0
Number of times work was thought about: 0
Number of times real life interfered with fun: 0

In my book, that's a good weekend.

These Are A Few Of My (burp) Favorite Things

There’s something about the Christmas season that just pushes your pants past their breaking point and sends the button shooting off dangerously in some random direction. Ah, good ol' tradition!

Yup, you can’t go anywhere these days without being assaulted with high-calorie Christmas goodies that you are forced to eat in self-defense, or risk being labeled as a Grinch. For example, here is what the middle of my week looks like:

Tuesday – Treat Day at work
Wednesday – Work Team Christmas Get-Together after work
Thursday – Another Treat Day at work
Friday – Most likely, getting my stomach pumped

This isn’t even factoring in the plate of cookies that was dropped off at my doorstep by the landlord. It’s getting to the point where I hope I get a Rascal for Christmas.

Now, I realize that it is my decision as to how much Christmas junk food I eat. But when it comes down to it, and there is fudge involved, my willpower skitters away and hides under the couch, only to reappear sometime during the New Year, aghast at the number of calories that now must be burned.

Still, this year I have a secret weapon that will help make everything much easier. I can’t believe it took me this long to think of it. It makes so much sense: stretch pants.

Shop 'Til You Drop (Or Sit In The Car Instead)

Ah, Christmas shopping.

I do enjoy the Christmas season, and occasionally I even like trying to pick out interesting gifts that will surprise people. Still, I’m not a huge fan of the hordes of people who are out trying to do the same thing.

I really shouldn’t complain, though. Where I live now, the crowds aren’t all that bad. I remember Christmas shopping in Minneapolis one year. More specifically, I remember driving around a full Best Buy parking lot waiting for somebody to leave just so I would have a place to park. That was not fun. Anybody on my gift list that year was lucky they didn’t get slush wrapped in a box.

Still, some folk know how to do it. I always like seeing the men sitting in their cars in the parking lot. Obviously, their wives are inside doing the shopping. I assume they are in the car for one of two reasons: either they insist on not coming in, or their wives won’t let them because all they’d do is gripe and complain and knock over display stands the whole time. Either way, that seems to me like the best way to go, and I hope that someday I get to be one of these guys. You can listen to the radio, take a nap, wave to the other unfortunate guys who are heading inside, or read a book. Your only worry is whether your entire retirement fund is being spent while you sit in your car or not. Still, it’s a worthwhile tradeoff.

Despite saying all of this, Christmas is the time for giving, and I’m trying my best this year to go the extra mile. I think my multiple viewings of It’s A Wonderful Life have made me a bit sentimental, but you need to embrace the season, I guess.

And for anybody out there on my list, I hope you like slush.

Padded Room, Here I Come!

I did something dumb the other day. But luckily, it was dumb in a funny sort of way.

I had just returned home and was approaching my front door. I had my hands full with groceries and was fumbling with my keys. Suddenly, I realized that I was doing something that didn’t seem quite right. Puzzled, I stopped and looked down. That’s when I realized what it was: I had pressed the ‘unlock’ button on my car keyless entry, after I had aimed it at my front door.

Needless to say, the door didn’t open. (If it had, it would have been awesome.)

After that, I stood there in the hallway and laughed out loud. I suppose I should have been scared that I had attempted this, as a guy shouldn’t be losing his mind and trying things like this until he’s in his mid-sixties. Still, what was I to do? It was funny.

So, with this in mind, don’t be surprised if I start to exhibit weirder that usual behavior around you. For example, if I point a TV remote at you, I may just be hitting the ‘mute’ button, or perhaps ‘fast-forward.’ And, if anything like this does happen, please be polite about it and don’t make a scene. Just chalk it up to the whole ‘going crazy’ thing. Thank you in advance.

Still, I’m not too worried. Since then, everything has been fine.

Hey, there’s a delete button on this keyboard! I bet I could use it on some people that I know!

The Chain Smoker

Note: This is something I wrote quite a few years ago. Still, it amuses me.

I now present to you the first in an inevitable chain of columns entitled: Interesting People You Meet When You’re Standing in Line Behind Them Whom You Soon Want to Punch in the Throat.

In this case, I was at a gas station waiting in line when I noticed that the person in front of me was making quite a hefty purchase. Apparently, he either hated his lungs or his only goal in life was to have the worst breath in the entire world, because he was purchasing a plastic bag bulging with cigarettes. I was able to count at least ten to twelve packs on the outside of the bundle, but I’m sure the total was somewhere closer to twenty or thirty. His total bill came out to be eighty-two dollars worth, which is pretty impressive for a gas station purchase that does not include gasoline.

Here’s what got me, though. He said to the cashier, apparently in an attempt to defend his action: “My son is addicted to nicotine, so now I am.” This is a direct quote.

My only theory on this is that he must have looked into his son’s room at some point and caught him lighting up a cigarette. His paternal instincts kicked in and, for the good of his son and for the good of his family, he knew he had to make a responsible decision about what to do next. Unfortunately, it have been to say, “Hey, son, can I try one?”

Perhaps he fought the urge at first, mainly because his wife must have told him that he was as dumb as a post to start smoking just because his son did, but eventually he just couldn’t fight it anymore, especially when his son said to him, “C’mon Dad! Everybody’s doing it!” That was enough un-peer pressure to push him over the edge and start him on the road to Cough City.

But that is not why I wanted to punch this guy in the throat. (It was just funny.) The real reason was because he decided to pay with is credit card, and like ninety percent of all the people who have ever been in front of me in lines who have decided to use their credit card, he acted like he had never seen one before. He squinted at it, poked it, prodded it, tried swiping it a few times, talked into it, and generally wasted a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how to get it to work. (“Let’s see, if I was a credit card, how would I work? Dang, I need a cigarette to help me think!”)

Finally, he gave up, awoke the cashier, and let her help him. (All the while, I was trying to hold back a nearly irrepressible urge to topple a display rack over onto him.) Finally, he got everything paid for and headed outside to go on, I assume, a record-breaking chain smoking tirade which could very well last into the New Year. (Also, he left on a motorcycle, which indicates to me that he was well into his mid-life crisis.)

That brings me to my next topic. I could never, ever, not in a million year, be a cashier. I would not be able to put up with all of the people who’d come in and act like the current system of money for goods and services was new to them. You know the people I’m talking about. Those who forgot their money at home, those whose credit cards don’t work because they used them all winter to scrape their windshields, or those who come in looking to use a coupon from 1986 from a different store and who subsequently put up a huge argument when it isn’t accepted.

If I was a cashier, the only way I’d be able to handle it would be to keep a large club with me, kept discretely out of site. As soon as some customer started to pull any of the previously mentioned actions, I’d just whip out the club and bonk him over the head, and move on to the next customer, now brandishing the club for intimidation. Once the original customer revived, I’d give them another chance, but if they messed up, I’d bonk them again. I’d repeat this process until they got it right or gave up, or until the cops came and hauled me away.

Well, I’m sufficiently worked up. I suppose I should end this rant before I start to use some nasty words that I would regret, such as %$&#@, or even worse, &*%$@. I don’t want to offend anybody. Plus, I think it’s time for a smoke. I saw a guy smoking on the street once, so now I do it too.

KISSing at Christmas

Keep it simple, stupid.

We’re all familiar with the KISS methodology. Personally, I take it very seriously, which is why I never cook anything that would require the use of more than one pot or pan. (Hamburger Helper doesn’t make the cut. You need a pan for cooking the hamburger and whatever-was-in-the-box combination, along with a separate container to mix the topping. “Who exactly are you helping!?” is something I would yell if I tried to prepare it.)

For me, this also pertains to Christmas decorations. Now, I have nothing against Christmas decorations. I just don’t feel the need to completely transform my living quarters once a year, and then re-transform it back a few weeks later. Instead, I choose the simple approach, one which will get me into the Christmas spirit without causing me to pass out from the exhaustion caused by stringing up three miles of lights or from having a large tree topple onto me after I’d set it up in the stand incorrectly.

My decoration strategy follows a two-pronged approach: The first prong is Charlie Brown, and the second prong is the best Christmas tree ever.

By Charlie Brown, I mean my Charlie Brown figurine, purchased from K-Mart, which comes complete with his drooping, pathetic Christmas tree. It seems perfect that one of the few decorations I have is that of a pathetic decoration. It’s a funny kind of irony. Plus, you can’t go wrong with Charlie Brown.

The best Christmas tree ever, however, is my centerpiece. While this Christmas tree is plastic and small, its decorations were all crafted from the hands of my nieces, which is why it is, without a doubt, the best Christmas tree ever. Plus, it’s small enough that I can store it without ever having to un-decorate it. Each year I just pull it out of the closet and it’s ready to go. (Now, if only Hamburger Helper would take notice of things like this they might learn something about efficiency.)

So, each year it takes me approximately one minute and thirty seconds to get decorated for Christmas. It’s a good system, and I urge you to remember the KISS method during Christmas if you want to cut down on your stress. That is, of course, unless you’re talking about baking Christmas treats. Then you should feel free to go wild. You can never have enough of them.

Disgracing Yoopers Everywhere

Today I had one of those moments when you realize that you’re getting a little too wimpy for your own good.

You see, over the last few years I’ve enjoyed covered parking at work, which has been nice in the winter. (I also park in a garage at home.) However, recently I was moved to another building which does not have covered parking, and today it snowed for the first real time this year. When I left work I discovered that my car was covered in a thin layer of it. This annoyed me greatly, and I found myself grumbling to myself as I retrieved my scraper. I thought about how unfair life had become now that I'd lost my precious covered parking.

This lead to the anti-Eureka moment, which was triggered when I remembered that I had been born and raised in the U.P., a place where you learn to brush off your car when you’re still in diapers, and where you can operate a snowblower by the time you’re in kindergarten. I then realized that I had become a disgrace to Yoopers everywhere.

A Yooper walks through knee deep powder each morning, looking at the random mounds of snow dotting the landscape, wondering which one contains their vehicle, and then digging exploratory tunnels into the most likely candidates until said automobile is found. Then they have to spend twenty minutes digging themselves out with brushes, shovels, brooms, or whatever is handy at the time.

And here I was complaining about brushing a thin layer of snow off of my windshield that could probably be removed with a really good sneeze.

It was truly a sobering moment, and it got me thinking. Maybe I should take a vacation this winter, head up to the U.P., and spend my time shoveling snow for free, just to toughen me back up a bit. It would be a good way to reconnect with my roots and remember who I truly am.

Then again, I hear Florida is nice this time of year.

Eat Your Heart Out, Cledus T. Judd!

The best thing about YouTube is that you can get the highlights of events without having to watch the entire thing.  Case in point, the recent CMA awards:



Awesome.