Big Ben Goes BONG!...

OK, it's not funny that Ben Roethlisberger cracked his Hayabusa off of the front fender of the little old lady that cut him off. Really. But, I must say, it is more than a little ironic that, a little over a year after he and Drew Bledsoe are featured in and ESPN piece on NFL players that don't wear helmets when they ride, he's in a motorcycle accident. Trey Wingo had a good observation in discussing Big Ben's interview from that piece...Ben did seem almost defiant when he said why he doesn't wear a helmet.

Now, for a couple of questions that have come up since the accident yesterday...

1. Should professional athletes be banned from riding motorcycles? Altogether, no. I do think that teams should have the ability to restrict their players from riding them during the season (as many teams do), but, the players should be free to ride their bikes during the off season.
2. What are the odds that Ben's contract will have language addressing motorcycles in the future? Pretty good, I'd say. I think that the teams would be well within their rights to place language in the contracts requiring that if players ride, they wear helmets. These guys may be grown men, but they and their talents are also investments for these teams, and it in the best interests of the teams to try to protect their investments.

That's just my opinion. Nothing will probably change, though. Probably not until a high profile player dies on a bike.

I'm republishin' my list...

A while ago, I got tagged by Geor3ge (*sniff*), to do some list, and, well, I finally got to do one of the things at the top of my list, I'm also going to give some edits to the rest of the list as well...


Seven Things To Do Before I Die

1. See Phantom of the Opera in the West End - *check* - 4/20/2006
2. Go to college - may have to, depending on Delphi!
3. Own a Harley Davidson motorcycle - probably not for a reeeeaaalllyyy long time.
4. See the Bears play in Soldier Field - I'm still holding out hope for this one.
5. Ditto the White Sox at Comiskey Park (OK, US Cellular fucking Field).
6. Learn how to make the perfect lasagna - I've been domesticated, so this may yet happen.
7. Learn to tango - maybe not.

Seven Things I Cannot Do

1. Drive a stick shift - nope, still can't.
2. Keep from correcting my stepdaughter when she says "I've saw" - nails...on...chalkboard.
3. Listen to "Feed Jake" or "He Stopped Loving Her Today" all the way through - ditto above.
4. Understand what's so interesting about 99.9% of "reality television" - still sucks.
5. Like George Bush - nope, not happening.
6. Stop my dog from licking the carpet without breaking the law - hasn't done it lately...
7. Miss CSI: (the original…not the spinoffs). - God bless TiVo.

Seven Things That Attract Me to...Blogging

1. Answering the question "what's a blog?" 48 times a week - It's a little less nowadays.
2. The vain hope that someone famous might 'discover' me - Hellllloooooooo?
3. Being able to express myself for the world to see…for free - Yeah, Baby!
4. Knowing that, every so often, someone does read it - sometimes not too sure about this one.
5. When TMB comes around and starts being his old TMB self (kept this one from Geor3ge's list) - still accurate...nothing beats a cranky/drinking/Oklahoma conservative!
6. Inspiring someone else to express their opinions, too - inspirational!
7. Telling that person that they are full of shit, and they have no clue who I really am - PRICELESS!!!

Seven Things I Say Most Often

1. "Way to go, Einstein."
2. "Is your room clean enough to be on the computer?" (stepdaughter only)
3. "Good job, you".
4. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"
5. "Fuck."
6. "Nala, Randy, finish up, lets go!" (dogs only)
7. "Plant 15, Spencemo* speaking." (work only (*name changed to protect the innocent))

Seven Books That I Love

1. Bill Clinton, My Life (OK, I couldn't get past page 47, but it's one hell of a paperweight).
2. Lewis Black, Nothing Sacred.
3. Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends.
4. Any good cheezy, sleazy, historical romance novel (I'm such a chick) - Replace this with The Green Mile - Stephen King.
5. E.B. White, Charlotte's Web.
6. Roget's Thesaurus.
7. My high school yearbook.

Seven Movies That I Watch Over and Over Again

1. Dirty Dancing (the original, not that Havana Nights shit) - Yep, still my favorite.
2. Ghost (OK, I do have a bit of a thing for Patrick Swayze, sue me)
3. The Sound of Music - Almost too sad to watch, after what happened to Julie Andrews' voice.
4. Die Hard - Yippee Kaiyay, Mother Fucker!
5. Any Star Wars - I know, I'm a geek...
6. The Lion King
7. Somewhere in Time - Cheezy, cheezy, chick flick.

Seven People I Want To Join In Too
Oh hell, I don't know…

Grrrrrr.....

I really should have known better.

You see, I needed a new vacuum cleaner, mine is losing it's 'oomph'. The search began at Sam's Club...they're offering a Hoover model that claims "Outcleans Dyson by 13%". Well, since I'm not plunking down $500 for a vacuum, we thought we'd pick that one up in a few days. Well, lo and behold, they were all gone when we returned, so now the hunt is on to find this vacuum somewhere else.

We went to every store in town (that we could think of) to find this Hoover, and came up empty everywhere. Next, we decided to search it on the internet (logical, no?). Well, we found it...the fucker is a Wal-Mart exclusive. Fuck.

My hatrid for Wal-Mart is deep and pure. I'm not sure what Wal-Mart looks like in your town, but here it's the fucking redneck jamboree. Until Saturday, I hadn't stepped foot in our local Wal-Mart in about 3 years.

OK, so we braved the parking lot and headed inside to find my vacuum. It was going pretty well, we found the new vacuum quickly and headed for the checkout. As we stepped into the checkout lane, we noticed that it was a "10 items or less" lane, however, the chick in front of us had a cart full of Easter candy that she was loading onto the belt. There had to be 25 or 30 bags of candy there. If that weren't bad enough, she proceeded to pay for her goodies with food stamps. Now, c'mon, food stamps should buy things like bread, milk, cereal and the like. Not 84 metric tons of easter candy. I probably would have been less angry if she'd paid with a check.

Now, we checkout, and head to dinner, having been released from the grody grips of Wally World. After a lovely dinner, we make our way home to assemble and try out our new dirt sucker, which, I must say, really picked up some shit out of my carpet. As I was marvelling at the amount of dog hair this thing ate, I take out the dust bin to empty it, head to the trash can, and notice a large pile of dirt on the floor by my feet. Fuck, the latch that is supposed to hold the dust bin closed is broken. NOW I HAVE TO GO BACK TO WAL-MART AND EXCHANGE THIS THING! It's almost a fate worse than death.

That was Saturday. Today, it got worse...

Today, I repack the broken vacuum and load it into my truck to return it to the hell from which it was spawned. As I'm preparing to turn up an aisle to park, I see a Buick LeSabre's reverse lights come on, so I stopped to let the guy get out of his space. The guy proceeds to try to turn this thing 180 degrees to drive the wrong way out of the aisle. He missed my front fender by about 6 inches. I'm not pleased. Once he's out of the way, I start to head into his empty space. Next thing I know, the lady that was parked in the space next to him, backs out, pulls a complete U-turn and drives the wrong way out of the aisle as well. And, OK, I lost my tiny little mind, yelling and cussing (me, cuss?), and she just sweetly waves and says 'thank you' because she thinks that I let her out.

Now, once I finally got inside, the exchange went pretty smoothly. I got the new one home (again), put it together, plugged it in, and the fucker didn't work. Wouldn't even turn on. I've had it. Now, I have to go back to Wal-Mart AGAIN, and return this thing. I could just die.

This time, I'm getting my money back and going somewhere else, while I figure out how to scrub Wal-Mart gunk off of my soul.

UPDATE (4/11/06): Well, after calming down, when I got home today, I called Hoover to see if it's possible to take the handle back out to check the power cord connection. Sadly, it isn't. So, I calmly took a look at the back of the machine, realized that the screws were regular phillips-head screws, took a panel off and fixed the machine myself. Problem solved...

I still have to get that Wal-Mart gunk off of my soul, though...I think a few beers should at least be a start...

There Ought To Be A Law...

There really should be a law against having to go to the dentist and need to fill your gas tank on the same day. That was my Thursday...straight from the dentist to the gas pump. Talk about taking it from both ends! $44.25 to fill my tank! Bring me the head of Exxon's CEO!

On a funnier note, I just had the funniest experience in a drive thru in a while today. I went through the Starbucks (mmmm...coffee) drive thru today, and when I paid for my coffee, the cheerful clerk looked at me and said that I could make my Caramel Macchiato at home! All I needed to do was buy this spiffy $1000 coffee machine! That's one hell of an upsell in the drive thru. Shit, when I was working one, we just tried to get people to buy a 50 cent apple pie, not a $1000 coffee machine!

But, it is on sale, after all, it's usually $1200...hell, I should buy two...

Too Cute to Resist...

Say hello to Nala...isn't she cute?

The Ultimate in Red Tape...

As I was reading the news at lunch today, I happened across a story on AOL.com about an injured Army vet who was being refunded by the government after being charged for his missing body armor. It seems, that he 'lost' his body armor after the medics had to destroy it because it was covered with his blood. His unit refused to sign a waiver for the vest unless he had witness statements to back up his claim that the medics had to destroy it because it was now a biohazard. The army gave him a bill in the neighborhood of $650 for the vest and other missing items out of the vest. What, if I may be so bold as to ask, in the living fuck is wrong with this picture? This poor soldier got the fuck blown out of him in Iraq, and the Army wants to send him a bill for the vest that saved his life?

What moron is in charge here? Oh wait, I remember who that is now...

Super Bowl Sunday...

You know, I never in my life thought that I would say this, and it's almost painful to do so...

I can't wait until the Super Bowl is over.

You see, I live right in the middle between Browns territory and Steelers territory, and, well, I'm not a fan of either. I do, however, work with a shitload of Steeler fans that have become increasingly obnoxious over the past two weeks. I don't know how much of this shit I can take. I don't mind people being enthusiastic about their team's success, but these assholes take it waaaaaay too far.

I have started fighting back...I placed a shortcut on my desktop to a Google video playing the Bears' Super Bowl Shuffle, so when I get bombarded with Steelers propaganda, I just click the link and turn up the volume...

"We are the Bears Shufflin' Crew..."

...sigh...

Moving to a New Neighborhood...

OK, since it seems like everybody else is doing it (lemming!), I thought that I'd try blogspot and see how I like it. We'll see how it goes.

Later, all.