Kentucky lovin'!

I am in the mood to spread a little love today, and I hate to be greedy, but today the love is all about fellow bloggers in my home state of Kentucky. When it comes down to it, I am proud of my state and proud of my city of Louisville, and as much as I enjoy blogs from all over the country and even across the world, I am getting all grass roots and shit today...
This is a collective group of some of my favorite blogs from around Kentucky...favorites because in their own way, they show great humor, great talent, and great intellect...3 key ingredients to a really enjoyable blog for me...many of them are starting to find a bigger audience, which makes me ecstatic, but if you haven't checked them out yet, please do...you don't have to be from Kentucky to enjoy them...*girly Japanese giggle*... OK, that was just fucking weird...
Rock on, my fellow Bluegrass babies...

The Terminal Blog - Guillermo is one of the funniest guys I have ever known, hands down...and full of seething sarcasm and angst, but also, this guy is a phenomenally talented writer... add it up and what do you get? Kick-ass blog, that's what!

The Blue Pelvis - Another of my favorite reads. Susie Reynolds has a warped sense of humor and hilariously off the wall writing skills...a very fun read!

Charmed & Dangerous - This newlywed and co-worker is always a trip...count on her for some funny pictures and links!

Did I Say That out Loud? - Ahhhh, poor crazy Greta... she's a wacky one... you will enjoy, I promise!

Delicious Ambiguity - ND gives you her take on life in Lexington...she's a professor too, and a much cooler one than that guy on Gilligan's Island...

Thinking with Crit - Insanity! I knew she was a good egg when I saw that she was a big Simpsons fans too... quick, sarcastic wit is her specialty!

Not-So-Baka - Gadget reviews, sports talk, and lots of funny stuff from a fellow music enthusiast fella, Rah-X!

Well Roasted, Toasted and Tipped to Perfection - Cole Buzan is Paducah, KY's resident legend, and she will baffle and delight you with her writing skills and humor!

The World's Smallest Violin - Stop by and visit Lizz! The two zzs on the end of her name indicate pizazz!

Mandyland - Just like her good friend Charmed, lots of great pictures and quick hits... I don't know how she finds half the stuff on there, but it's great!

HotHotJapanHot - A group of guys conspiring to entertain you and make you fart before it's all over with... one of those guys happens to be Charmed's husband, Dunnski...very enjoyable blog!!

The Musings of Amber Murphy - Amber is one of the newer blogs I'm following but I liked it in a hurry...she's a cool cat...

Something Like a Memory - Stop in and say hi to Jocelynn, a very talented artist and a very cool gal!

Jerasphere - Jera has a couple of blogs going, including a 365 picture blog, and she has lots of fun stuff!

Aggregate Amalgamate - Natalie is in college and showing the other students how it's done...how what's done, you ask?...stop asking questions and just go visit her blog kingdom!

Once Upon A Faith True - She is super talented and has an amazing way with words. I think she's going to go a long way, so stop by and give her some encouragement!

Gay Man Trapped In A Lesbian's Body - Erin is great! Very funny and dare I say "sassy"??? She is a master at all things pop culture, so enjoy!

The Dreams, Musings, and Commentaries of Margot - Margot is an amazing writer and I believe she is a super intelligent being from some other super intelligent planet...she is nifty!

The Amorous Life - musicjunkie is...well, a music junkie! And a very cool cat, and a great commenter... her blog is not updated often, so maybe we can collectively motivate her to blog more...hahaha!

And wait, there's more!! I created a special little blogging award just for those kick-ass bloggers that I have mentioned here...display this award proudly on your blog if you'd like...you have all earned it...this is to show my gratitude:



Pass it along to other great Kentucky bloggers that you think deserve this award!!

Other fellow Kentuckian bloggers that I know: If I failed to include you on here, it certainly wasn't out of disrespect...I tend to lose track of things, so please forgive me...shout out and introduce yourself!
Have a great weekend everybody...

5 songs of the day:
The Fundamentals Of Brainwashing by Steve Hackett
Diskobox by Beck
Voyager by The Alan Parsons Project
Vital Signs by Rush
and
House Of Love by Jimmy Page & Robert Plant

Quick Halloween recap...

Hey all, hope you have been doing well...I'm still slogging through things here, and at this point, my "blogging stroke" is still out of whack, but I just had to share a few photos from Halloween night... and hey, it's an added bonus, because you guys finally get to see pictures of my wife (unless you are also my Facebook friend, in which you have probably already seen her...we had a great time with my brother, his girlfriend, and a lot of old friends at the party... I brought a bottle of snazzy Fat bastard Shiraz wine, and I enjoyed the hearty, robust goodness in that bottle...maybe a bit too much...drank myself into the perfect buzz and had lots of fun...that's what it's all about, right? After all of the stressful shit at work lately, it was nice to finally have a little fun...

So what did I dress as? Well let me put it to you like this... I knew that there was a real fever going around out there, and I don't mean the swine flu... I'm talking about a fever in which the only prescription...was more COWBELL!

So here was Will Ferrell as cowbell-wielding Gene Frenkle on SNL:



And then here's me as Gene Frenkle on Halloween night...lots of fun...


My wife and I...my wife was an eccentric time traveler...all her own concept!


My brother as a creepy shadow...I thought he could use some cowbell as well...


My wife straps on the goggles for some intense time traveling...


She was surrounded by the shadow and creepy alien slashing victim (???) but she broken them down...


And finally, I enjoyed playing on the entrails of disembowling victim and our party host Paul... the Fat Bastard wine was clearly affecting my judgement...


So yeah, good times...very good times... too bad Halloween is only once a year...unless you're Elvira...man, I need to get a gig like that...

5 songs of the day:
Continuum by Zero One
I'm An Animal by KISS
Queen Of Spades by Styx
In The Light by Led Zeppelin
and (of course...)
Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult

Needing a break...

In the coming days and weeks, there is probably going to be a big decrease in my number of postings... it can be attributed to a few different things, but I would be kidding you and kidding myself if I didn't say that the main factor is work stress...
The last few weeks have been possibly the most stressful in my nearly 12 years at this company, and I have tried to soldier through it and keep a sense of humor and keep my mind fresh and engaged by blogging and reading your blogs, but the simple fact is that I am getting worn down, no matter how much resistance I try to maintain. I realize that many of my posts have been about humorous things that have happened at my place of work, but trust me when I say that the bad stuff far overwhelms the funny stuff...

My job has always consisted of me supporting telecommunications equipment for businesses and also residential customers of varying size, so as you can imagine, these people never call me to say "Hey, just wanted to check in and see how you are."...it consists of them calling me and telling me that my company is the spawn of Satan, and that I am the Devil's fiddle player, lulling them into a slow and painful death through lost profits and screeching, painful flat B notes on my sinewy devil fiddle... nobody has ever told me that, but it might actually make my day if somebody did...
But suffice to say that the increased number of problems with some of the products we supply, the angry calls and emails from customers and sales agents, my constant bickering with our carriers and vendors that lead into complete deadlocked snarls on how to fix their lousy shit, conference calls, meetings, the on-call rotations where I get calls in the middle of the night, and yes, problems with certain co-workers has finally just about flattened me like a pancake...

I can feel the stress breaking me down mentally and physically, and that's how I know that it's getting to be too much. And I feel like it's sucking the humor right out of me... as a result, I don't feel like anything I write is funny lately... I feel like I am burned out on my blog, and I feel like people are getting burned out on me too, so maybe it's time for me to take some time to regroup...

I am planning a blog on Thursday and then a Halloween recap on Monday, but beyond that, it's just going to be a crap shoot... I need to blog when it feels good, not because I feel like I'm obligated to, and right now, I have to be able to make that call... yesterday's blog, for example, felt like a big old dud...it felt forced and lazy, and I hate that feeling... so maybe I'll cut to twice a week, maybe even once a week if it still doesn't feel right...

Right now, my objective is to find a way to deal with the mounting stress (preferably without having to medicate myself into a thick, gloomy haze) and to find ways to renew myself and to find my "funny" again... it's out there somewhere, buried under a big mound of physical pain and malaise...it's up to me to dig it out and re-energize myself...
I just hope that you guys will be patient with me... so a big thanks from me to all of you wonderful people... hope you'll stick around...

Scattered and chunked Monday bullshit...

Oh… 'allo there! Didn't hear you come in. You came here for something? Not to see me? You want WHAT???? You want me to stick WHAT up my WHERE?????!!! You poor, sick soul! Get the hell out of here!

How did you like that? I am practicing my method acting... Today's blog is totally haphazard and random, so get ready! Look out, because I'm going to be coming at you hard and fast like Larry King!… eeeewwwwwwwwww… Even I don't know what that was supposed to mean...

Random thoughts:

• Another great chapter in the "WTF is wrong with people" file: Man Punches "Zombie"...
  
• My brother is very upset because he can't do a Bill Cosby impression... He is so upset, in fact, that he has taken a vow to saw off one finger from his hand each day until he can nail a good Cosby impression, so the way I see it, he only has 10 days to get his shit together.
• Burt Reynolds just plain scares me now...

• I think it would be neat if we had two rows of teeth, just like sharks... The only downside would be twice as many cavities, and wow, braces and dentures would be a pain in the ass, but imagine the gnashing you could do! Oh...the gnashing!
• There is a certain species of Beetles (and no, you jokesters, it's not Ringo Starr) that is threatening the very existence of Beech trees as we know it... Or maybe it's Ash trees... At least, this is what my Aunt says. It's OK, I take it all with a grain of salt. My Aunt looks like Gene Wilder... Anyway, through some incoherent chain of conversation with my Wife and my brother about it, it has been determined that the only salvation we can pray for against this infestation is the Weekly World News' own Bat Boy.

My theory is that he will single-handedly wipe out the Beetles like a slightly more comical version of The Terminator... I don't know how, when, or even why he will be the world's last hope... He just will. If there is a reason for him to be on Earth, and we all know he does exist, then this HAS to be it. He will save the Birch trees... Or the Ash trees... Or maybe ALL trees. Then you all won't think he's so God damned funny, will you? You will hug Bat Boy, enduring his sonically ear-piercing screeching and massive amounts of skin-scorching saliva dripping down on you. I know you will, because I did it...

5 songs of the day:
Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles
Bu_ist by Zero One
Verao Vermelho by Santana
M386 by Brian Eno
and
White Room by Cream

Bathroom Incident

OK, so I was taking a piss, right?…wait, that's not exactly a classy way to start a blog. Let me start again from the top...

So I went into the men's room at work yesterday... I'm walking to the sink and getting ready to wash my hands, and in walks my company CEO, and he's firing on all cylinders, practically screaming at the top of his lungs "Hey there, my man (he has no idea what my name is even though I have worked here for nearly 12 years, and we're not that big of a company)!! How are ya?! You are looking good today, my man, looking GOOD!!!" He then gives me a ridiculously loud slap on the back...

So at this point, I am practically flattened like a pancake from his over-enthusiasm (you know how salesmen are), and I can only give a half-assed grin and say "Hey, how are you?" He pretty much didn't even let me complete this sentence before he yells again "How are you feeling today?? Are ya feeling GOOD?!" He is yelling this as he is relieving himself at the urinal... I said "Yeah, I'm good, just a little tired, but good."

His reply is "What are ya tired about?!" I retorted "Oh, work stuff."

Here is where the most bewildering exchange comes in: "Every day work, every day living!! Working hard!!" At this point, I was finished washing my hands and getting ready to dry my hands, when he lurches over towards me, and once again, whales on my back like Rocky Balboa punching a side of beef, and, with a look on his face that I can only describe as baffling rage, he yells "WASH THOSE HANDS!!! WASH 'EM GOOD!!"

I am now only able to gasp out a bit of confused laughter and he then chimes in with "I just want to tell you that I appreciate the job and the work you do every day (again, he has no earthly clue what I do)!" and then he storms off in the other direction...

As I am trying to recover from this barrage of insanity, it suddenly occurred to me that, while he was verbally and physically assaulting me and yelling like a drunken pirate about me washing my hands, he never even washed HIS hands...and he had been slapping me on my back... Mu-ther-fu-cker...

As Jeff Garlin once said on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, "That was a big bowl of wrong"…why can't I ever have something cool happen to me at work? …like having Samuel L. Jackson come in and verbally abuse me to the point of a good pants-shit?

Here's hoping that your boss doesn't slap his bio-hazard all over your back on this Friday...have a great weekend!

5 songs of the day:
Swampthing by Juno Reactor
Cinema by Yes
Wait Until Tomorrow by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Circumstances by Rush
and
Achilles' Last Stand by Led Zeppelin

Halloween is almost here!

First off, I want to thank all of you so much for your unbelievably kind words regarding my post from yesterday... you guys are the best... it's strange, my condition is something that I felt like I was almost hiding away from the blogging world, and it made me feel like I was kind of repressing it and living in denial, so it felt very liberating to get it out there...

In browsing the Target website yesterday, I stumbled across something hilarious while looking at Halloween costumes... apparently, Target has mistaken a beloved Sesame Street character for a stealthy Ninja wielding a particularly deadly looking sword:



I love it!! Apparently, the Cookie Monster doesn't fuck around when somebody tries to swipe his cookies... he must go all Oren-Ishii (from the Kill Bill movies) on such thieves... "You touch cookie, I collect your fuckin' head!"



Anyways, I have submitted my discovery to the Failblog and we'll see if it makes it in...

Yeah, sooooo...I really don't have much of anything else today...Oh, but this was hilarious...While checking Google Analytics to see what kind of keywords people used that led them to my blog, I found this one particularly funny: "rachel ray big fat pumpkin head".
This must have led them to my most vicious rant of all time, the one on Rachel Ray...if you are relatively new reader of my blog and you hate Rachel Ray, you might enjoy it, so check it out if you haven't already!

So hey, Halloween is just over a week away now and I am excited this year...My Wife and I both have our costumes ready and we have a kick-ass party to go to, so it should be a blast... I don't want to reveal yet what my costume is, but it should make for a good time...don't worry, I am sure there will be a party recap blog with pictures...
What are YOU going to dress as for Halloween this year?

5 songs of the day:
I Am The Walrus by The Beatles
Round The Bend by Beck
A Kind Of Loving by The Police
My Love Is A Liquid by The Tubeway Army
and
Living Sin by Emerson, Lake & Palmer

There's Something About Meatbag...

So I'm coming clean (that's what she said!) and I'm talking about something that I never talk about, so this is probably going to be a little awkward for me to blog about...hopefully it will not be awkward for you to read...

I was born with a condition called Arthrogryposis... it is a fairly rare muscle and joint affliction that affects approximately 1 out of every 3,000 babies born, and it is present at birth...it's not something that just develops over time... it's not really known what causes it...I don't believe it is a genetic thing, it seems to be something that is related to the conditions around birth, whether it be a problem with the uterus of the mother and even hypothermia of the fetus, according to the amazing medical staff at Wikipedia (yes, that was sarcasm)...

Therefore, we have no idea what caused my development of this thing...my Parents never did drugs or anything like that, but my Mom has a theory that it could have been related to the fact that they were living nearby a chemical plant while she was pregnant with me...
I was born healthy otherwise, but I was already going into surgery the day after I was born, and I had multiple surgeries thereafter until I was five years old...

So what does all of this mean? How has it affected me? Well, third person question guy, it means that my wrists are kind of "hooked", the left more profoundly than the right... my feet kind of bend in towards each other a bit, which uneducated folk always seem to mistake as being "pigeon toed"...I hear this all the time, and I have to tell them "No fuckoids, I am not pigeon toed, this is another kettle of fish altogether"...I then present a kettle of fish and get this bad-ass smirk on my face...OK, not really, but I am considering it... OK, back to this shit...I can't straighten my right arm out completely, I can't hold my arms up and reach above my head (very limited shoulder motion), my neck hurts constantly, my knees are shot, and I am well down the road to debilitating Arthritis as I get older...

Now, as hard as this may be for you to believe, I am not telling you this because I want your sympathy...really, I have never wanted to be coddled or treated differently because of it, and I especially don't now that I'm 35 years old. Really, I just thought that it was an interesting fact that virtually none of you know about me, other than the people I know personally that read this blog... Truly, there are very few things that I can't really do...I can drive, I can swim, I can play drums, I can run (although not so much as I keep getting fatter), I can throw a football, I can play basketball (although not very well!), and hey, you can't beat the perks of KICK-ASS HANDICAPPED PARKING SPOTS!

The mental part was always tougher than the physical part, of course... it has taken me a long, long time to accept who I am and feel comfortable in my own skin, but I think that I have adapted well throughout the years...that is what you have to do...adapt. In high school, I had not yet accepted it... I felt like I had missed out on so much, and I felt like everybody treated me like a charity case...Oh, I had lots of friends...good friends...the ladies? Not so much...but they all claimed to like me as a friend...hahaha...does that line sound familiar, girls?
No matter, though, because I have an awesome wife now who loves me for exactly what I am, and I finally feel like I am who I am...not in a Popeye way, just in a Billy way... so high school girls with your Aqua Net-ted mall rat hair, you missed the boat, and most of you that I see on Facebook look like Hell now, so "Hooray" for me...hahahahaha!

OK, maybe that was a little "below the belt" of me, but hey, I don't care...it's my blog...
But hey, this isn't me crying over spilled milk, and this isn't me saying that I've been screwed over my whole life...this is me celebrating getting over all of that bullshit and finally getting over feeling sorry for myself...*Rick James voice* It's a celebration, bitches!! Enjoy yourselves!!

So here's to getting on with life!!


5 songs of the day:
Superfreak by Rick James
Celebration Day by Led Zeppelin
Makin' Love by KISS
Rio by Duran Duran
and Do You Wanna Touch (Me There) by Joan Jett