The 50th Time's the Charm

Sweet, sweet Danica, my future wife, became the first woman to win an IndyCar race at the Japan Indy 300. I attribute it to her hard work and my constant encouragement via unreturned letters and emails, and lighting prayer candles at the Danica Patrick shrine in my closet.


Here's one of us hanging out at the beach together. Don't we look stunning?

Pizza Anyone?

There was this homeless guy Hyrdafry that used to hang around Dover drinking a cup of nothing and claiming that he was responsible for the death of Biggie Smalls.

Hey, Hydrafry. Did you kill Biggie Smalls?
"Shit yeah! Notorious B.I.G.!"

I haven't seen him in a long time, but the last time I did, it's pretty much the way you want to remember a homeless guy. Okay, you'd rather the last time you see a homeless guy be at his housewarming party, but this wasn't so bad either.

I had just left some useless college-resume-building school activity with pizza and bagels that were going to be thrown out. I went with my high school ex Maggie to try to give it to a soup kitchen or someplace where it wouldn't go to waste, but we couldn't find anything that was open. The one church we went to was even closed. I didn't even know that could happen.

We were driving past JFK park and I look over and see Hydrafry sitting on a bench talking with some guy. I stop the car and get out and say I'm going to go over and see if they want the pizza and bagels. Maggie tells me not to and says they're going to attack me, but I bravely wander into the mouth of the beast where they remain seated and politely say "Sure" to my offer of food.

Hydrafry did not have a cup of nothing and was not speaking in tongues about dead rapper conspiracy theories. He seemed like his head was on straight for one time in the five or so times I ever actually spoke to him. It was a sunny day, shorts weather, Hydrafry had velcro shoes, food and a friend. For a homeless guy, not the worst situation. Then I never saw him again.

I remember three rumors about Hydrafry - 1) He killed Christopher Wallace, 2) He owned three or more houses, 3) He was homeless because he got messed up on acid and mushrooms and because of that, saying "Hydrafry" was a trigger that would make him start talking nonsense.

The first two...come on. But the third might not be so out of the question. Once my co-worker was in New York and had to go to the ATM to deposit a check. She gets to the bank and is about to go inside when she sees a bum laying on the floor with his ass half hanging out.

Not wanting to disturb the bum during his "activities," afraid he wasn't exactly the most stable minded of people, and not the least bit happy that the security guard normally on duty to prevent half-moon homeless guys from sleeping on bank property was absent, she flagged down a passing cop to kick the guy out.

Cop walks in. "Alright guy, let's move it...what the fuck?"

Bum grabs a nice oily slice of New York City pizza and slides it down into his dirty pants. Mmmm. Fromunda.

How the guy wasn't arrested, I don't know. The cop told him to clean up his mess and hit the road. He took that to mean fall all over the place while gathering his things.

While I was cracking up, my phone rings for an interview that I have no interest in conducting, thus partially ruining my enjoyment of the story. But I was chuckling to myself about it later when good old Mr. Fry popped back into my mind for the first time in I can't remember how long.

Unfortunately, I couldn't help thinking that even though he was sitting having a conversation with his fellow man of the street on a quiet park bench, acting the most normal that I had ever seen him, that I gave some pizza to a homeless man who claimed to have killed Biggie Smalls and enjoyed sipping air from a styrofoam cup.

Is it a stretch to picture Hydrafry's velcro shoes and crinkly butt cheeks on the floor in front of an ATM, laying half on top of an empty Dominos box? I guess not anymore.

Dear Inconsiderate Ladies

If someone comes up to you in a bar and says hello, asks to buy you a drink, or just tries to strike up general conversation, don't say you're about to go with your friends to the club upstairs when you have every intention of remaining in the same spot for the next hour and a half to two hours. Just say you're not interested.

Now the other three girls, they just politely said "No" when asked to take part in the Brad Schmidt Experience. Their honesty was much appreciated after I finished shedding tears into my Coors Light in a dark corner.

Wouldn't You Watch This Show at Least Once?

"Eat This Piece of Shit for $500"
...I think you could get one season out of it.

We Watched the Ravens Find All the Eggs

Easter Egg Hunt
One Easter I hid the colored hard-boiled eggs outside. James soon woke up and went searching for his Easter basket. He was busy examining its contents when a large black raven flew past the picture window with a brightly colored egg in its claws. Then another raven flew past. We stood at the window and watched the ravens find all the eggs.

- Crow
As the Crow Flies

First Grade Feeds the Hungry Thing

Somehow I ended up with the only existing record of Mrs. Brandli's class' attempts to feed the Hungry Thing. Well for 1990 anyway. I'm sure this lesson was repeated until her retirement, but I can guarantee that all subsequent classes would be considered street trash in comparison with our glorious body of work.

If you're wondering (and I know you are), this is the Hungry Thing and he's resting on a set of sheets that were just changed for the first time in almost two months:


He's your average blue blob and of course, as all blue blobs are, he's a dead beat looking for a hand out. Worse, he's trying to take advantage of seven-year-olds and Mrs. Brandli is encouraging it.

Just look at his smug face:

What kind of blob gets to be 500 lbs. by being hungry? And on top of that, is hungry with a smile? The kind of blob that knows how to work the system for a hand out that isn't his.

But who am I kidding? I'm in favor of universal healthcare...and now we know why!

So, brainwashing adolescents with liberal propaganda aside, when the Hungry Thing came to Hillcrest Elementary School, he wanted one thing only. No foreplay, right to business. "Give me what's in your damn lunch boxes or I'm shoving my blue toes in your mouth!" Or at least that's what I would have said if I were a hungry blue beast with only 20 first graders and an senior citizen first grade teacher standing between me and piles of food.

But this Hungry Thing was nicer than me, so he showed up with a smile and politely said...actually he didn't say anything. Mrs. Brandli wrote that he just showed us his sign. Maybe blue blobs are genetically predisposed to vocal chord diseases.

So like good little boys and girls, we did all we could to please this stranger who was in need of our assistance. Everyone made something, and just in case he wasn't as nice as he seemed, we made him every kind of food imaginable. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, sides - he got it all. Carrots, ice cream, fish, pizza, cake, cupcakes, spinach, hot dogs and popcorn.

He also got some pudding on a nice red and black tablecloth,


a bowl full of eggs,

a peanut butter-less PB&J,


grenades and/or pineapples,


and a muffin holding a rifle and weeping into a puddle...I'm sorry, I read that wrong. This one's pancakes.


The kid that picked rice didn't really leave himself much to work with. He probably loved Uncle Ben's and asked his mom to make it every night, but I doubt he considered what a struggle it would be to adequately capture rice's image via crayon. He should have just left the page blank and said it was a close-up.


My personal favorite is the mix of blue and brown cookies. Shouldn't Nabisco have already come out with something like this? I'm betting they'd fly off the shelves.


There was also a writing aspect involved in feeding the Hungry Thing that went like this:

I'll feed him fryanide
Sounds like myanide
I mean cyanide

There was some purpose to it, but I can't figure out what it was. It sounds like a rhyming lesson, but aren't you past rhyming by first grade? Rhyming seems like a pre-school and kindergarten thing. Where's The Witch when you need her? She could help me out with this one.

The kid that made hot dogs originally tried to feed the Hungry Thing pot pogs and wot wogs. Still cracks me up to this day.

My entry was decidedly middle of the road. No bouillabaisse, no ratatouille, no sloppy joes. I went with your standard cereal. It gets the job done, but it's not very exciting. However, the Hungry Thing did get to eat using a massive black spoon out of a see-through bowl on a levitating table.


On second thought, I see some brown milk, so maybe I was thinking cocoa puffs. That doesn't make much sense though because I'm not a fan of cocoa puffs. We'll just say it is to snazz up my two-steps-up-from-bottom-of-the-barrel effort.

So finally, after 17 meals, the Hungry Thing decided that he'd had enough. He even got a stomachache according to Mrs. Brandli, but he didn't let it show as he smiled and wrote us a


You know, the Hungry Thing has got some pretty good dental hygiene for being in such desperate straits. Those are some awfully white teeth for someone who goes around begging first graders to cook for him.

Wait a minute. Wait a goddamn minute. Did anyone else see this? I just noticed it. Look at the chain holding up his sign. Solid gold. What a swindling bastard.

Try looking at his face now and see if you think it's grateful. His sign might as well say "You got took, bitches!"

I want my mereal back.

Until Next Year

He never dies, baby. He never dies. And nobody could ever figure out why, but I just discovered the reason a few hours ago after we got sent packing by the damn Sooners.

He loves to fly back to his nest, relax through the Spring, and then take all summer to figure out how best to get our hopes up in January and February and then how to smash them on the jagged rocks at the bottom of the Schuylkill in March.

But I guess we're guilty too because we keep coming back for more.

November '09 it starts all over again.

Let's go Saint Joe's *clap clap clap clap clap*

New Mommy Rant Redesign

Our old friend 30 Minute Mommy had her site redesigned and it looks really good. Check it out. Not to mention you get to see pics of the cutest kid ever.

Autism Links of the Day
Something called sticky blood proteins have been linked to individuals with autism, but researchers aren't sure what, if anything, the body chemical has to do with autism.

The Joy of Autism - Blog of Estee Klar-Wolfond, writer, curator and founder of The Autism Acceptance Project.

Sorry, My Minions

It's been over a week for the three of you reading out there, but pardonne moi for the lapse in communication. I was in Vegas for three days working and didn't really have a chance to update.

I know what you're thinking - "How is he going to update from the trail if he can't do it in Vegas for three days?" Well here's my response to that - Eat it. I was working all day and then went out afterwards. I didn't have the time and when I did have the time, I was in no shape to post anything coherent.

If you don't believe me, check out this picture:

I don't remember taking this at all. The weird part is I remember before getting on the elevator and then afterwards, but the elevator ride itself is lost in a black hole somewhere out in a faraway galaxy.

I distinctly remember the beforehand because I followed these two people down to the casino floor from the Voo Doo Lounge at the Rio. It sounds stalkerish but so what? There'd be no story otherwise.

When I saw them dancing together I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This woman was stunning, absolutely jaw dropping. I mean your mouth practically started watering at the sight of her. Amazing. The guy on the other hand was in possession of a pretty conspicuous comb over and an overly large brown suit. So when I saw these two leaving together I had half a seizure and barely recovered in time to make it down with them.

But once they get out of the elevator, they started taking their sweet old time and I had to stand around waiting for them to make their way down the escalator to the ground floor (the Voo Doo Lounge is on the roof of the Rio and the entrance to the elevator is on the second floor). So I bide my time and take some pictures of the slot machines


and a casino worker walking by.

I've been there before. I understand the hanging around, making small talk, desperately hoping something would come of all the build up during the night. Typically I was shot down and would wallow in self loathing and misery for many sleepless nights afterward. I'm sure my mere presence had a corrosive effect and rusted his chances from the inside out. He went down in flames. Got the "It was fun!" and a This Is the End of the Line hug. I was pained by sense memory watching that one.

So then we have the elevator blank spot. Probably brain damage from drinking.

And right after getting off the elevator:

Now this I remember because as soon as I was done snapping this one, I decided it was time to find Randy. The thing is, I don't know anyone named Randy. But pounding on doors and yelling for Randy to let you in will convince anyone that you do.

After the sixth or seventh time, my hand started to hurt. And I had made my way back to the group of doors where my room was anyway so I figured I would have the common courtesy not to wake up my immediate neighbors.

And the dirt bag that I am, I didn't take a shower when I woke up the next morning. I actually didn't shower for the final two days of the three that I was there. If you think about it that way, I did get one kind of hiking related activity in. So I say again - Eat it.

The Fall of Communism

It being that Spring Break time of year, you can guess who's home this week, and knowing my nakedness theory, you know what there will be a lack of at the Schmidt residence during this second week of March. Or so I thought anyway.

I don't lock the bathroom door when I'm in there as I feel keeping an entire bathroom to myself when I'm only using it for one thing at a time is just a waste of resources. However, since no one else shares my philosophy, just my being in there is a de facto door locking. No one in my family sees eye to eye with me on this one.

I can see at least that no one wants to hang around brushing their teeth while you're taking a dump (yet no one in college had a problem as I recall), but if I'm in the shower, why not just come on in? There's complete separation via door or curtain. On top of that you've got a five to 10 minute window to accomplish your everyday bathroom tasks - brushing teeth, deodoranting, combing hair, cologning, adjusting your dentures, popping in your glass eye. Post-Mexican you might want to rethink your approach, but still, it's more than enough time to avoid witnessing a blood relative toweling those hard to reach spots.

So I continue to leave the door unlocked. Zach has come in a few times, but he still tells me that he's coming in. I won't be satisfied until someone walks in wordlessly, does their business whatever it may be and goes on their merry way (I think there's a good chance that last sentence will pop up in an X-rated Google search string in the near future).

That is until Dean walked into the unlocked bathroom while I was showering and stole all of my clothes, my towel and the floormat. He laughs and leaves, I say nothing, not wanting to give him the satisfaction but also figuring that he'll throw it all back in in a minute or so.

Minutes pass and the bathroom floor is still devoid. I figure he left it outside the door so I could grab it all without having to come out. Wrong again. I see my clothes on the couch and have to do a naked dash to grab the towel before anyone comes around the corner and sees me...except there's no towel in the pile. Bastard

Ironically, Dean's presence was now forcing me into nakedness in a house full of people. Go figure. I try to sneak into the other bathroom with the closet full of towels when my mom comes around the corner going for the same doorway.

"What are you doing?"
Dean stole my towel.
"I thought it was dirty and someone left it there so I put it downstairs." (Hands me a towel)
I need a floormat too. He stole everything.
(Laughing begins)

I tried to throw off the chains and all I got was laughed at for losing my towel. Sorry, Karl. Failed again.

A Lesson in Accounting Grammar

Read this passage my faithful readers:

A field in JDE now enables the receiver at the site to input a 'Receipt Date,' so even though the GL date is post-cutoff, this Receipt Date enables Carmen to pinpoint exactly which receipts, in particular the monetary value, that needs to be accrued for prior to cutoff.

I know what you're thinking. It should read "accounted for prior to cutoff." Oh ho ho would you be wrong!

What you'd never learn from your bad professors at Temple or in an accounting text book is that while "accounted" seems to be the correct term, the inventory quantities and monetary value has already been accounted for, based on the transaction in the G/L, which happens to be in the next fiscal year.

In the world of accrual accounting, dollars move around as if they had wings, and in this case, via a top-side booked accrual. Therefore, accrued and/or deferred are the correct terms.

And now, watch as my evil plan to turn an innocent kitten into an unstoppable terminator capable of laying waste to all of human civilization becomes reality!

It Tastes Like What?

After I finished working out the other day, I made a protein drink, just the powder and milk. I don't like to get fancy. And it's not ridiculous bodybuilder protein mix either with human and sea lion breast milk mixed. Whatever the generic Vitamin Shoppe mix is, that's what I get.

Usually I pick up chocolate just because I can't picture vanilla or bananas and cream being any good. Powder in the glass, milk on top, stir stir stir, drink. This was no different than any other protein drinking day except for the fact that this particular drink was the most delicious drink I've had in years. It was like sucking from God's own chocolate protein shake teat.

This drink was even better than the one day at lunch in high school when I chased the Tuscan chocolate milk dragon and won. While drinking the first down, I openly declared it to be the best chocolate milk I had ever had and then, risking eternal disappointment and endless longing for the original taste of the brown bovine, I got up and spent another 60 cents (that sounds too high doesn't it?) and was rewarded for my boldness with another icy treat from the heavens.

I'm betting something is wrong with this batch of protein. Spiked with ephedra or something. How else could it taste so good? It's probably really just chocolate milk mix, but really good stuff from an artisan chocolate maker in Switzerland or Jersey City.

So as I'm slurping loudly on purpose for my own entertainment, I remember doing the same thing back when I first moved to Mine Hill, when our kitchen had Previous Owner disease and was a brown and orange dump with an island in the middle that made it almost impossible to move around with more than two people in there at a time.

One day I was making Nestle's Quik out of the metal tin with the circular cap on top. I could never get the spoon out without clanging it against the opening and knocking mix onto the top of the tin. Instead of pushing the mix back in, I'd just blow it off, thinking that no one would notice the accumulation of repeated mix scatterings. I seriously thought the mix would go away, like dissolve or evaporate.

My favorite thing to do after making the chocolate milk was to drink the first couple of sips with the spoon. It was only the first few because after that it feels like you're wasting your time and I was too impatient to be bothered with savoring.

As I do every day of my life, I was talking to myself, in this instance about how much I love chocolate milk, and in particular, how much I love drinking chocolate milk from a spoon.

"I love it because it tastes colder and more metalier!"

The exclamation point is warranted as there was genuine excitement. I wouldn't be surprised if the excitement also caused me to break into laughable dance as happens every day of my life.

It really does taste colder, though. And metalier.

What I Learned from the Last Half of Pee Wee's Big Adventure - Part II

13) Favorite part I - Pee Wee getting sick of the hobo and throwing himself off the train. Sweet lord. Reporters claimed that when screening this scene, Dick Cheney snickered.

14) Who knew Pee Wee could be so inspirational?

Simone: Do you have any dreams?
Pee Wee: I'm all alone. I'm rolling a big doughnut and a snake wearing a vest...
S: No, not that kind of dream. I mean a dream you dream about all the time...and it keeps you going, dreaming about it...hoping it will come true. Do you ever have a dream like that?
P: To find my bike.
S: My dream is to live in the city of eternal love...Paris, France.
P: You'll get there, Simone.
S: I don't know.
P: Why not? What's stopping you?
S: Andy, for one.
P: Who's Andy?
S: My boyfriend. He's real jealous. He flunked French in high school and thinks that everything there is set up to make him look dumb.
P: I bet if he knew how important it is to you, he'd change his mind. Simone, this is your dream. You have to follow it.
S: I know you're right, but...
P: But what?
S: Everyone I know has a big "but."
P: Come on, Simone. Let's talk about your big "but."
S: I don't know.
P: You can't just wish and hope for something to come true. You have to make it happen.
S: I've been waiting for somebody to put it to me like that for so long.

Pee Wee, not only have you convinced a fictional 80's waitress to take up residence in Paris, but me to go on a cross country hike. Thank you, Mr. Herman. I've been waiting for somebody to put it to me like that for so long!

15) Tina the Alamo guide is, as I've mentioned, a baby vamp. However, her accent sounded so fake I thought it was a joke. But apparently she's from Georgia, so what do I know about southern accents?

16) And Pedro is working on an "adobe." Can you say that with me? Adobe.

17) Sometimes the best medicine is fake laughter:

We are now in the kitchen of the Alamo women. Here they are preparing culinary delights of the Southwest. Do I hear someone's stomach growling?

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

18) Pee Wee calls Dottie from a pay phone and asks her to wire him a bus ticket. This movie really is old.

19) If you end up with a case of temporary memory loss in Texas, just tell them you remember...the Alamo!...and you're in like a dirty shirt (Does the analogy make sense? Not much. I think I heard it somewhere. Maybe I made it up. Either way, I like it and I'm going to use it).

20) Pee Wee walks into the biker bar and no music is playing whatsoever. Give me a break.

21) Favorite part II:

Biker: I say we stomp him! Then we tattoo him! Then we hang him! And then we kill him!
Pee Wee: (throws voice) I say we let him go!
Entire gang: No!

22) A female biker grabs Pee Wee and says seductively, "I say you let me have him first."
8 year old me: "For what?"

23) The bar has neon signs for Michelob on Tap, Coors Light and some other beer that looked like Lorshs. Could have been Grolsch. I couldn't make it out.

24) Favorite part III - Laugh 1 - It is clearly not Pee Wee on the motorcycle; Laugh 2 - I become a giggling school girl when he crashes through the billboard.

25) Kids watching the clown dream sequence in the hospital are going to be freaked the F out. I remember hating this scene years ago and it's still weird and uncomfortable today. I don't have a problem with clowns, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were ruined for a lot of kids by that scene.

26) A Wayne Arnold sighting!

27) The head nun on the movie set...she's another looker. This movie's just full of them.

28) Pee Wee escapes with his bike and has his path blocked by a pink and blue elephant. I may be stating the obvious, but that reminds me of a joke. What do you kill a blue elephant with? A Blue Elephant Gun. What do you kill a pink elephant with? Hold its nose until it turns blue and shoot it with a Blue Elephant Gun.

29) A couple of short 80's shorts sightings.

30) When the Warner Bros. security guard on the bike rips off Pee Wee's fake bike handle, I always thought I would have been pissed because the new handle that pops out had no tassles on it. That leaves only one handle with tassles. The bike's all uneven now.

31) If you notice, there's a Wicked Witch homage in the music during the bike chase.

32) The Pee Wee chase interrupts a Twisted Sister video that looks like it was the inspiration for the Rock Band opening.

33) Pee Wee launches himself over a fence onto the roof of a house with the cheesiest set of rockets ever shown on film.

34) When Pee Wee frees the baby chickens from the pet store fire, one takes a tumble down the step outside of the door. Poor little chicken.

35) Again, this movie is much older than I remember. Absolutely awful police cars.

36) A super spy with a beard? This must be an 80's flick. Not to mention...

37) ...the fight scene where the ninjas steal the X-1. I know that this is supposed to be cheeseball, but what was it about the 70's and 80's that made choreographers unable to create realistic movie fight scenes? A prime example - watch the original Bourne Identity. I turn it on a few months ago expecting Matt Damon to shove a pen into the hand of a European secret agent who for some reason is fighting with a back pack on, and I get Richard Chamberlain running on a cloudy European beach being chased by children. Later on he demonstrates the fighting style of a right handed person trying to throw lefty for the first time. And I know flat tops were at one time a hair style of choice, but this scene can't only look ridiculous in hind sight. I picture the director yelling a disgusted "Cut!" after suffering through another drunken Richard Chamberlain lunge masquerading as a punch, then berating the executive producer for slashing the fight choreography budget at the last minute.

38) Any remakes of this movie are going to have to get up to speed with our current political enemies. Pee Wee originally blames the Soviets for stealing his bike. The infidel Canadians would now have to be responsible.

39) Phil Hartman makes a cameo (he helped write the script) and is basically just playing Troy McClure before anyone knew who Troy McClure was.

40) The movie ends with Dottie and Pee Wee together riding bikes. Dottie has two tiny dogs in a basket on the front of her bike. Tiny dogs used to be used as jokes in Pee Wee Herman movies. Now people have special purses to carry them around in at the mall.

41) As it turns out, I really only missed a few scenes. I guess I'm just used to movies being over two hours. Mr. Wee's Big Adventure is only 90 minutes, so it felt like I came in at the middle.

42) You stink!

What I Learned from the Last Half of Pee Wee's Big Adventure - Part I

1) I always hated that guy who played Francis (Mark Holton). When I was a kid I probably just thought he was mean, now it's more likely because of his pale body and man boobs. Can't stand him. Just like the dad from Heavyweights (Tom McGowan). At least McGowan is from New Jersey. He's got that going for him.

2) Pee Wee is pretty damn funny. I laughed out loud a bunch of times, and they weren't "I haven't seen this in a long time and I've decided to sit through the whole thing so I might as well make it enjoyable" laughs. When Pee Wee is hitch hiking to San Antonio, and he's getting frustrated and bored, the scene cuts to him passed out laying halfway into the street - I genuinely cracked up.

3) Watching the cars go by during the hitch hiking scene made me realize that the movie is much older than I thought - 1985. I was thinking 1990-1992. It's older than both of my brothers.

4) It's funny watching kid movies as an adult because you pick up on little things. This, however, is not one of them. It can't be more obvious that Mickey (the guy who finally picks up Pee Wee) is an escaped violent criminal. He's wearing a prison uniform, he's wearing broken off hand cuffs, there's a police bulletin on the radio about an armed and dangerous escaped convict, Mickey at one point whips out a handgun, there's a police road block where they go through an entire sequence of tricking the cops into letting them go, and yet I still remember believing Mickey when he said he was wanted for cutting off one of the "do not remove" tags from a mattress.

5) What is Pee Wee wearing when he pretends to be Mickey's wife at the police road block? It's like a 1960's-refrigerator-green knitted wool poncho. Ridiculous.

6) Paul Reuben makes for a believable woman.

7) Another scene I laughed at: Pee Wee's driving at night and the road signs start getting out of control until finally boulders start crashing down all around them and Pee Wee drives off a cliff. They're saved by the retractable roof opening up into a parachute, letting them land safely. Comedy.

8) Large Marge utters the first line I remembered from memory - "It was the worst accident I ever seen." She then describes the sound of the accident as "a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building." Comedy.

9) Pee Wee sits down at the bar with the Large Marge shrine (it was her ghost after all if you don't remember, kids) and after he's finished eating, he realizes he's missing his wallet. Cut to Pee Wee washing dishes wearing a ridiculous hair net. Comedy. This scene also made me wonder what actually happens if you don't have the money to pay for your bill? I feel like they would just have you arrested or take your license or car keys and let you go to the ATM. I don't know about ATM availability in 1985 so maybe it was still the punishment of choice.

10) I forgot that a bunch of my early crushes were in this movie. Simone (Diane Salinger) the waitress, Dottie (Elizabeth Daily) and Tina the Alamo tour guide (Jan Hooks). Three hotties. Tres magnifique! Jan Hooks is still working for me, and although there's a good chance Dottie has had some, shall we say, plastic surgery, Liz is as well. Sadly, I can't say the same for Diane. Ahh, brings back memories of all my eighties celeb crushes - Kelly McGillis, Kelly LeBrock, Kerri Green (Andy in the Goonies - another Jerseyan, what what!), and Meg Ryan (the Top Gun and Innerspace era only).

11) The giant T-Rex where Pee Wee and Simone watch the sun rise is named Mr. Rex. His brother the Apatosaurus (if you call it a brontosaurus, paleontologists will beat you), is called Dinny the Dinosaur (pretty weak name if you ask me). They're now part of an intelligent design museum.

12) Examine this sequence: after avoiding a shower of boulders, Pee Wee drives off a cliff, only to be saved by a convertible top, then rides with a ghost in an 18 wheeler, watches the sun rise from the mouth of a T-Rex, gets chased by a Bluto-looking guy named Andy with a giant bone, hops into a freight train to escape, ends up getting laughed out of the Alamo because it doesn't have a basement, becomes a world-record-setting bull rider, temporarily loses his memory, is nearly killed in a biker bar but dances his way out of death to "Tequila," then is given a motorcycle which he doesn't know how to ride and proceeds to crash through a billboard. Pee Wee destroys Will Ferrell in the absurd comedy department. Better quality, much funnier.

I'm In An Embarrassing Mood

There was something wrong with the muffler strap on my dad's truck so he took it in to the dealership to get fixed. He wouldn't be able to make it over during the day to pay for it so he asked me to do it for him so he could pick it up later tonight. I figure later tonight means five or six, during normal business hours, so I leave the keys there figuring that he'd be dropped off and would just grab them then. Wrong on both accounts.

I get home and as it turns out, my dad was going to pick the truck up way late, like around midnight and would indeed need his keys. But like the loving, doting wife that she is, my mom decided that she would go pick it up so he wouldn't have to. After I got home from work she asked me if I would go with her ("After you eat we're going to pick up daddy's truck") and drive the truck home. After informing her that I did not have the keys because of a father-son miscommunication, she told me that she completely understood ("You're an idiot") and called my dad so that he too could join in on the understanding.

I really didn't feel like going out, especially not after having the molehill of an issue turn into a mountain of manure which was then dumped on me, but I am a loyal son (no rent payments) and agreed to help out anyway. I go outside, walk across the deck to the driveway, take a step to turn the corner right on top of a patch of ice. My right leg goes straight up into the air, my left arm drives into the ground and I perform a pathetic roll.

Motherly instinct: On
"Are you alright?"
"Yes."

Motherly instinct: Off
Cackles loudly.

Embarrassed, I get up and start running to my car.

Motherly instinct: On
"You didn't hurt yourself did you?"
"No, just my pride."

As I was driving home, keys in hand thanks to the showroom manager, I thought, "I'm in an embarrassing mood." Whenever this happens, I feel the need to tell the entire world whatever cringe-inducing event has just occurred in my life. I guess it's my way of getting over it. This makes two embarrassing falls in three days.

I went skiing at Camelback on Saturday and I'm standing in line at the lift, one of the next ones to go and wouldn't you know, I lose my balance, fall over backwards and almost poke my friend Kile's eye out with my ski. The entire line laughed at me, even more so as I tried to stand up and almost couldn't.

But I'm over those (well, almost - I'm still shaking my head over the Camelback fall), so in the true spirit of embarrassing mood story telling, I present to you a never-before-printed tale crafted in the early days after deciding I wanted to become a writer.

There is no title, or real distinction between characters, so without further ado, I present it here with disparaging comments:

"Gay."
"What's up, beach?" (Awful)
"Nothing. What's going on?"
"Nothing. So what do you want to do?"
"I don't know...I thought we were going to the park, douche."
"Alright, fine. I just wasn't sure if that's what you wanted to do. Do you really want to go?" (The conflict here is intense)
"Yeah. I got no problem with that."
"Alright, so where do you want to meet?"
"Ummm...I'll just come to your house, ok?"
"Yeah, fine. See you in a few."
"Peace, yo."

(Instead of describing the scene change, I wrote a squiggly line)

"Yo."
"Yo." (Hemingway-esque)
"So what's going on?"
"What are we gonna do?"
"I don't know. Let's explore."
"Sounds like a plan, dawg." (Cringing)
"I love coming to the park. It's so nice, well, as long as its not shitty weather." (How insightful)
"Yeah. I want to find something cool. Treasure chest...million bucks...one of the two."
"And what are you going to do with the money? Treasure's gay." (Head shaking)
"What!? You're telling me you wouldn't take some diamonds or a crown?"
"Alright, I would, but a million bucks is better." (A philosophical debate for the ages)
"You know what I think is gay as shit? Those people who say money has no real value. Like, that 'means of exchange' bullshit." (As you can tell, I was taking an intro poly sci class at the time)
"Yeah seriously. Would you take a million bottles of coke, or a million dollars?"
"But then they'd say, 'Oh, a million bottles of coke' just to spite me, or because a million bottles of soda is worth more." (Huh?)
"Well, technically a million bottles of soda is worth more."
"Depends on the brand."
"True."
"Say a million bottles of Coke. That's like $3.5 million dollars or some crap, depending on where you buy it. So we'll set the price at $1.50. So $1.5 million. And then those people will still insist, out of spite or stupidity that they'd take the Coke. So where would they use the Coke? Are they going to spend it at Wal-Mart? Shit no."
"And then Coke would be like, 'Where did you get a million Cokes?' You're under arrest."
"Exactly. Dumb f---s." (When trying to make a point, the f-bomb always works best)
"I hate stupid people." (Self-incrimination)
"Me too. But they make for good conversation."
"True."

I can't continue. It's too horrible. The rest is filled with curses and late 90's-early 00's pop culture references (India Arie as a sexual icon? What was I thinking?). I thought enough time had passed, but now I think that will only happen if I'm dead and I leave it in my will to one of my great grandkids to read on their 18th birthday with the requirement that they burn it immediately afterwards. Even then I'll probably look down from heaven to see myself being laughed at generations later and the embarrassment will have stretched into eternity.

They say sometimes its best to let sleeping dogs lie. This one should have been clubbed and thrown into the woods.

The First (Real) Post

The hike is two and a half months away, but I've realized that sometimes I'm just not going to have much that's interesting to say about it.

Take today for instance...actually I did do one thing worthwhile regarding the hike, so my intro is useless. I set up a donations page through COSAC so you can make credit and debit donations online (http://njcosac.kintera.org/aamonth2008/hike4autism). I'm quite tech savvy.

So today was not one of the days that I described initially. Anyway, that intro was just a ploy to make a smooth transition into talking about something non-hike related, and as evidenced by that segue, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

I figure if you're going to be nice enough to spend the next seven or so months following along, we should get to know each other. And at the very least I should try to be somewhat entertaining, otherwise this would just become an embarrassment to be paraded around at family dinners and by my friends at the bar.

The keyboard to this computer is annoyingly loud for some reason. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it, but my brother is home from school tonight. He's going for his physical fitness test for the police academy tomorrow morning and he went to sleep since he's got to wake up early for it.

He left the door to his room open and I could hear him snoring, but these firecracker keys must have woken him up because he got up a while ago to close it. I kept insisting earlier today that he was going to fail, but after that the thought of it drifted out of my head and only came back when I heard him shut the door.

I felt bad and have sort of been trying to keep quiet, but I can't help Gateway's crap-ass keyboard construction methods. Anyway, the point is I wouldn't normally think of the loudness of the keyboard because no one's usually here to wake up with it. So now that he's here, there's just no more walking around naked.

The beauty of living close to work is that I'm the last one to leave the house in the morning. I wake up to an empty house, exercise, eat breakfast and get ready for work in an unfettered environment, and for me the term unfettered almost invariably means no clothing.

When nobody's home, there's no carrying a wet towel around and forgetting it on your bed leaving a big wet spot. If I want to watch highlights on ESPN, but don't feel like going upstairs to get changed first, I'm free to do that too. YAHTZEE!! All your clean underwear down in the basement? No need to throw on a pair of shorts just to walk through the dining room and kitchen without offending someone.

Now my routine has been messed with. If my brother's home possibly lurking around a corner trying to scare me, then I'm not so keen on it. Plus being naked is more of a solitary thing for me anyway.

Luckily, it's not a winter or summer break situation. Then all bets are off. I could go weeks at a time without having an opportunity. Not to mention he eats all the damn Chips Ahoy in about two days. So few cookies, no nakedness. It's not a fun situation.

I've read that you can go entire days at a stretch without seeing anyone on the PCT, so it got me thinking...But then I realized the sun's a factor and I wouldn't want any issues there. You've got spiders and scorpions too (don't want to think about that). But the one thing I'd be afraid of is tripping and falling. Doing it in clothes is one thing, but it can't feel good when you're au naturale. Then if you hurt yourself, you're going to be sprawled out waiting (could be a while) for someone to come around the bend... and then what do you say when they find you?

I don't know, but it would certainly make for a good entry.