Does anyone else suspect that this will be the scene in the Q household one day?

Since I haven't learned yet how to post video I am instead referring you to this link to check out some great international music. Skuter!!!!

http://www.d-videos.com/video/17008

A Strange Thing Happened at Work Today

While realizing that I hadn't blogged in weeks it occurred to me that my faking being busy at work accidentally turned into me really doing work. Now I don't mind doing work. Heck they're paying me for it, but everything in moderation right? The truth is I've been spending time at work getting in better with all my stressed out overworked co-workers. I've been trying to find out what the big deal is and why they are there all those extra hours. It turns out that they spend half of each day bitching about how stressed out and overworked they are to each other, rather than actually working. In fact I think if they would take a moment to notice how much time they spent complaining they would realize that they actually have more than enough time to accomplish the work that they have in front of them. I'm one of those people that like to make things simpler for themselves. When I get a project I ask myself, what's the easiest way to get this done. Then 9 times out of 10 that's what I go with. So then I have free time at work that I have to use looking busy. That's why my monitor will never be visible from the door to my office. In fact my fake work habits have earned me a reputation for having a real attention to detail. My boss even applauded me for it today. Of course he did so as he gave me a new project to be in charge of. No biggie though. Once I figured out how to do what he was asking of me, I decided which work that my coworkers "have to do first", that left me with a project that will take up about 1 full minute of each week. It's Ockham's Razor. The simplest way is the best.

America Sucks

I practically grew up going to Sci-fi and comic book conventions and we never had cute fans like they do in Japan that dress up like their favorite characters. In fact it seems the only place you find people that are willing to dress up in silly costumes here in America are on HBO's "Real Sex". What is wrong with our culture where we have to sexualize anything that is outside the norm. It's not enough to like something, but lets dress up like it and have sex! Oh well, I give up, and I would totally get with this chick.

One more pic that I found on Golf Girl's blog.

These are some pictures that I've been saving to blog about, but I might just T.O. myself instead.

Tivo List

Since I don't have a Tivo, I'll just have to post a list of the shows that it would hypothetically be set up to record. In no particular order I present the following:

My Name is Earl
NFL Cheerleader Playoffs
Desperate Housewives
Grey's Anatomy (for my wife)
Dancing With the Stars
Biggest Loser
Project Runway
Heroes (this might suck, but I'm interested to see how fast I'll get bored with it)
Bones (I've seen one episode, it looked ok)
Iron Chef America (in the hopes that somebody kills Bobby Flay)
Girls Next Door (don't judge me)
America's Next Top Model (seriously, don't judge me)
Any Justice League Cartoons
Teen Titans

Oh yeah, and Endurance or Endurance Island, whatever it's called. It's kind of like Survivor with 13 year olds. It's fun to watch because these kids aren't completely tainted yet and some of them still have morals. They want to do the "right" thing and stand by their "friends" even though it's strategic suicide.
Oh and anything that has the words "WWE" and "diva" in it.

Youth Soccer Update

We are a few games into my daughter's first season with our start up soccer team and I think we are coming upon a crucial juncture. We are 0-2 at this point and if we don't have a good showing Saturday I'm afraid the girls are going to lose faith that they can do this. We've got our obstacles and I knew this was going to be a tough season a while back. Only two of the girls (one of them mine) has ever played before. On top of that we are one of only two new teams in our division. All of the other teams have been together at least a couple of years. This makes a monumental difference at this stage, and I think even more so with girls. They are having to learn about competition. Not just skills, not just soccer, but competition. This is a concept that I think a lot of little girls are shielded from. Me against you and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that you lose. This isn't about us all having fun, because truthfully losing isn't fun. Our first game was against a really rude team that started smack talking and insulting our girls after they got up a couple of goals on us. This really upset our players. On top of that they were pulling hair, hitting, tripping and doing anything they could to fight for the ball. Whereas I don't condone any of their actions (in fact I complained to the commissioner). In the end I think it was a good thing for our team to face them in the first game. The girls realized that the other team wasn't out there to make friends. It was a good wake up call for all of them. We actually finished the game rather strongly and I think that if we faced them again that we would probably win. The second game we were short handed and had only one substitute. All of the girls had to play substantially longer than they were used to. I saw improvement on some things (positioning, aggressiveness, kick offs, throw ins). This team was better behaved than the last time, but was also better skilled. They beat us pretty soundly, but at points it was obvious that our girls were just exhausted. Once again it was good experience for the girls that were there. They learned that you have to push yourself, exhausted or not, until the game is done.
So game 3 is Saturday and I am excited. I honestly get really excited about all of them. We've had two strong practices where I'm seeing progress (spacing, passing, defending) and I hope this is the game where we turn our fortunes around. From what I understand this will be against the other team that is new, so it means that much more to me.

Thundercats Are On the Prowl

Oh nostalgia, nostalgia, nostalgia. Thanks to our recent free trial period with Blockbuster Online I've gotten to watch some DVD's that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I've now been able to share with my kids some of the joys of my youth. It was fun to see them getting into Thundercats and even better when I caught my son singing the words to the theme song of The Greatest American Hero after watching a couple of episodes of that one night. He liked the show, but just thought the theme song was too cool. I have to agree that it is one of the best themes of all time, so it was really neat to share this with my kid. I was so excited that the following week I decided I needed to share the Thunder with the people at work. Remember, Dagromm will always share the Thunder.

Football Football Football!!!

It's time! That day that every red blooded American male looks forward to. the start of American Football. Trying to prep myself for gametime and of course my fantasy football matchup I decided to go onto Fanball today and read up on some recent football news. I'm not a member and I just read the free articles so I was glad to see their main football article for today was their "expert" opinions on who the most over-hyped players going into this season are. It's not a bad article and I agree with a lot of what they said, but I shuddered when I read the senior editor's thoughts on someone selecting Frank Gore, "Let's face it, trusting a second-year player who has already blown out both knees is more foolish than swimming with stingrays." Ouch. The body isn't even cold. Having personal relations with the Q/Erwin family, I have to say that this is pushing the boundaries of callousness, into the realm of distaste.
This does lead me to another topic though, which is don't fuck with wild animals. It apparently becomes too easy to get to a point where you are comfortable and forget your own mortality. I'm not faulting anybody here, but they are called animals for a reason. They screw around with them long enough then I'm not shocked when a tiger rips one's arm off, or a grizzly tears one to pieces, and on and on and on. It's really not much different to me then Nascar drivers being killed in a crash. Sad? Yes. Tragic? No. Tragedy is when you do everything to avoid that kind of danger and it still finds you.

So in summation: Go Football!

I Need a Digital Camera!!!!

Over the course of one week I have now seen three seperate things that made me curse the fact that I bought a digital camera for my wife and not for myself. The first one occurred when I was on my way to meet up with the Q for a trip to Texarkana and Shreveport. While approaching the new Preston Rd overpass on 121 I saw graffiti painted in purple, blue, and black. Aside from noting that it was obviously done by someone who knew what they were doing I was also taken by the message they wrote next to the picture. In a very emphatic statement written in purple the artist had deemed it neccessary to state, "Pluto is not a planet!" I'm glad to see that the youth of America are so involved with our current scientific events of the day and want to get the word out. On the same trip and same day as the Q and I were making our long and lonely trip to Texarkana we passed what must be the most bad assed retaurant in the world. That's right, the sign said it all. The Q and I went into shocked disbelief and a quiet respect for "Ninja's Restaurant". We dared not enter for fear of being found unworthy. It admittedly didn't look too busy, but I imagine that the stealthy patrons who would enter there are too well trained in the shadowy martial arts for us to detect them. Kick ass! Lastly, the other day while traveling down the highway with my wife, I saw a newer looking Dodge pick up towing a new looking sporty boat. I didn't get a good look at the driver, but he appeared to be in his twenties and doing pretty well for himself. On the back of the boat in large letters he had written, "The Prostidude" which alone was enough to crack me up, but what puushed it over the top was what was written beneath that. Also in very large letters it continued, "AKA Ovarian Assault". All I could say was, "Wow". I couldn't tell from my wife's reaction to it what she thought. Amused or disgusted. I can only imagine the look on the poor father whose daughter gets picked for a day at the lake by this young fellow and doesn't see the inscription on the boat until it's driving off. I wish I could share pictures of all of this with you, but alas I don't yet have a digital camera. Keep it real America.

Recent Santorum News

Ripped from today's headlines. According to a news article today on CNN.com's website today about the new buzzwords of the GOP we get the following:

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, in a tough re-election fight, drew parallels on Monday between World War II and the current war against "Islamic fascism," saying they both require fighting a common foe in multiple countries. It's a phrase Santorum has been using for months.

So as you see. Santorum isn't just a recent local flash in the pan. It's a growing world wide concern.

Your Stripper Song Is
Closer by Nine Inch Nails"You let me violate you, you let me desecrate youYou let me penetrate you, you let me complicate youHelp me I broke apart my insides, help me I?ve got noSoul to tell"When you dance, it's a little scary - and a lot sexy.

I just thought you'd all want to know what I scored on my blogthings stripper song personality quiz.

Don't Do This

If you go to all the trouble of buying or putting together your tough guy bike. Don't ruin it by gaying it up with tassels. What happens to these guys? They get a motorcycle and then they seem to think it would be a good idea to wear leather chaps and have streamers flying from their handlebars? The only people who should have any sort of tassels are strippers, highschool graduates who are becoming strippers, and the Ultimate Warrior. Unless you fall into one of those categories, please stay away.

While trying to fill out my own meme much like Q's. I was reminded of my love for Tom Lehrer music. I don't think he's had any albums out for many years, but I have fond memories of his musical ability and his funny lyrics. Besides doing his comedic stage act he would play the piano and sing songs like his theme for an Oedipus Rex movie, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, and The Elements where he puts the entire periodic chart to music. I found a clip from part of his stage act in between songs and will reprint it for you here:

Now, I'm sure you're all aware that this week is national gall-bladder week. So as sort of an educational feature at this point I thought I would acquaint you with some of the results of my recent researches into the career of the late doctor Samuel Gall, inventor of the gall-bladder. Which certainly ranks as one of the more important technological advances since the invention of the joy-buzzer and the dribble-glass. Doctor Gall's faith in his invention was so dramatically vindicated last year, as you no doubt recall, when, for the first time in history, in a nation-wide poll the gall-bladder was voted among the top ten organs. His educational career began interestingly enough in agricultural school, where he majored in animal husbandry, until they caught him at it one day. Whereupon he switched to the field of medicine in which field he also won renown as the inventor of gargling. Which prior to that time had been practiced only furtively by a remote tribe in the Andes who passed the secret down from father to son as part of their oral tradition. He soon became a specialist, specializing in diseases of the rich. He was therefore able to retire at an early age.

I find oratory like this to be very amusing and now wonder if he isn't actually Lemony Snicket.

The House's Anime Pick of the Day
Ghost Stories
I truly enjoy this anime and have been watching it for the past couple of months. If I had still had Comcast (sigh) when the gang was over i would have insisted that you watch it, but since you all use Netflix or similar services I will now tell you to check out the first volume and see if you aren't hooked. When you watch it you must watch the dubbed version, because it has been overhauled in a completely American way. It is really funny and will probably catch you off guard. Warning: Don't watch it with anyone that will get offended too easily as the anime can be irreverent at times. This however doesn't seem to apply to my kids as they watch it and laugh even when they can't really understand the joke.

If I were commisioner of the NFL, I would make the game so much better and more profitable it's disgusting. First off I would create a new network that would be dedicated to the cheerleaders. Every squad would have their own reality show and on gamedays we would simulcast just the cheerleaders and their routines at the games. Secondly I would change the game time to reflect the most commonly chosen length in Madden, which is five minute quarters. This is an oversight that should have been corrected long ago if the NFL would just open their eyes. Not only would the games become instantly more exciting as all of a sudden teams have to rush to score points, but the stars would get injured less often. How great would that be? Furthermore I would have MTV do the half time shows for each and every nationally televised game, and I think we all know what that means. More nipples. So I know it's a little too late for me and Condi Rice to throw our names into the ring, but next time around...call me.

So I totally recommend that if you're a young Asian lady that is going to a job interview that you dress like this. Personally I think it has the right mix of old school conservatism and the current professionalism that todays' employers crave. Certainly not every job interview is a black tie affair, but you never go wrong by over dressing. It's a show of respect to the people that are taking their time to consider you for employment with their company. So listen up ladies; if you don't want to see anymore American jobs outsourced to other countries start showing up for your interviews dressed like this. It's the only thing that will save America!

An Odd Familial Relationship

Blogger kills me by dropping me at odd times. Normally while I'm writing a post. So here goes for the second time and we'll see if it sticks. When ever someone gets married they inherit a whole new set of family issues. Every family's got them you just don';t normally notice your own family's issues because you grew up with them. Hell you might even think they're normal, but let me tell you your family is not normal. There's good that goes along with it too. At least sometimes. Some people marry into money, fame, or opportunity. Some people get to bang Brady Quinn's sister like former Ohio State linebacker A.J. Hawk. In my case I got a brother in law that loans me his porn. This is kind of cool until you think about the fact that I have sex with his sister, so he must at some point realize that I'm doing at least some of this same stuff with her. maybe not as much of it as I would like, but a fair amount none the less. It's kind of weird being able to share porn with someone that you can't talk about sex with. Oh well, it's not marrying into money, but it's better than nothing.

So today I contemplated which was better: Krystal's or White Castle. Being from Texas neither of these is readily available so it has taken me into my thirties to have now sampled both. Unfortunately for me, being from Texas also means that I also know what beef is supposed to taste like. Trying to pick between Krystal and White Castle is like trying to decide which kind of elephant makes the better turd. In the end it's shit either way. So my advice is to avoid both and go to Watson Burger.