Christmas Post I

I’m having trouble getting onto the Christmas spirit. I don’t want this to be a sad post, but I’m having trouble. Before you start reading this, think of things I can do to get into the spirit. I’m going to write this and list the things about Christmas that I think are bad ass.

1.    John Denver and The Muppets: A Christmas Together. When I was a kid I loved the Muppets more than anything (I actually cried when Jim Henson died). I watched The Muppet Babies every Saturday morning when I was a kid. And John Denver, well, I thought he was actually Martina Navratilova. I was totally cool with this idea that a great, female tennis player and the Muppets could singer together and be merry, even if Animal caused a raucous. BTW, here is a picture of John Denver and Martina Nava... I'm tired of looking it up.

This one is JD.

This one is MN.

2.    It’s a Wonderful Life. My family watches this movie every year – or at least we try. I love Jimmy Stewart and the way he delivers lines. I wish I could imitate his voice. Somehow my wife hasn’t seen it before, but she’s seen A Christmas Story a million times. Likewise, I haven’t seen A Christmas Story before. Who is worse for not seeing the other movie? Check out these clips and you tell me:

http://www.angryalien.com/aa/xmas_storybuns.asp

http://www.angryalien.com/1204/wonderful_lifebuns.asp

3.    Stop Animation Movies. Why aren’t there movies like this for every holiday? Halloween? Thanksgiving? MLK Day? When I was a kid, I think (even if I never mentioned it to anyone for fear of being mocked) I wanted to make movies like that. I saw an episode of Pee-Wee Herman’s Playhouse once where they explained the process of making those types of movies, and I saw that it took quite a bit of patience and time to make those movies. My dream was over in a heartbeat. Regardless, the campy, cheesiness of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer remains awesome to me. I wish I could imitate Rudolph’s voice, too.

4.    I like getting new stuff. Christmas is the only time of the year where I get a bunch of new, random stuff (I know stuff isn’t descriptive but it’s hard to enumerate this). I have a great family, so even when I got older, I received tons of new stuff every year. There is really no other time when this happens. Over a year, I’ll accumulate all sorts of stuff but not in a flurry of excess like Christmas. As a kid, I’d have the biggest treasure trove of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the ‘hood. I was that guy.

5.    Cinnamon. I like the way it smells. Why does it disappear for the rest of the year? We need more cinnamon.

6.    Being a Teacher. I get two and a half weeks off, and it’s great. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a normal job, but I know that every year that I teach and get all my holidays off for extended times, I’ll never be able to work a 9-5 job. Also, my kids get my Starbucks gift cards sometimes when they are TRYING to butter my up for a good grade. Well, it doesn’t work, but thanks for the Starbucks, kid; I’ll think about you when I take a sip from my caramel macchiato. 

That is all for now. Obviously, I’m appreciative for many other things (chill out family!). I try to keep this blog light, and if I’m boo-hooing about how much I love everyone, I’ll lose my humorist cred. 

Also, here is a drawing of a cowboy-robot I drew.

An Open Letter to the People in and around my Neighborhood

An Open Letter to the People in and around my Neighborhood-

I think some of you may be taking advantage of the good people at Kroger’s grocery store. Don’t get me wrong – I’m with you. It happens to all of us. Sometimes when I go to the store, I’m too lazy to roll the shopping cart to the proper cart return area, and I’ll just leave it between my car and the car across from me. It’s not hurting anyone, and sooner or later someone who works there or another customer will bring it back to the front. My concern is I don’t think the Kroger’s workers will walk to your apartment to get the shopping cart back. I mean, it’s a pretty far walk and I think their jurisdiction ends at the parking lot. Believe me, I wish we could take shopping carts home too. I could totally use something that rolls to transport the clothes from the dryer to the bedroom. Or I could use it for firewood. How much easier would it be to just roll that bad buy up from the garage to the house? Alas, this isn’t a perfect world, you know? Those shopping carts belong to Bill Kroger. You can’t just leave them out front by that small tree next to the Mexican newspaper machine. 

Apartment dwellers who take the shopping cart home, you need to roll the cart back when you finish. I know what you’re thinking: I don’t have time for that! But, seriously, if you’re taking the cart home, you don’t have a car, right? If you don’t have a car, what the hell could you possibly be doing with your day? Like, you can’t go anywhere, so you must have free time. So, come on, let’s roll her back. 

People down the street who had a tipped over shopping cart on the small strip of grass next to their house for far too long, what are you doing? I’ve seen your cars, so why do you have a shopping cart in your yard? I’m not sure if you know this, but shopping carts aren’t generally used as decorations. In fact, most people would say it makes you look like a piece of crap. I know what you’re thinking: But I didn’t do it, some apartment dwellers must have left it! Well, guess what? They aren’t going to come back, get it and roll it to Kroger’s. It’s your job now. If you leave it there, these people will think it’s ok and your house will become the shopping buggy hub. We don’t need one in our neighborhood. There is a shopping buggy hub at Kroger’s already – it’s by the front where the automatic doors are located. 

Apartment dwellers and piece of crap at the end of the street, we can do a better job of making our community look better. I think we should begin with putting shopping carts back where they belong. Look, when I go to the store, I’ll make sure to cart my buggy back to the right shopping cart drop off place to practice what I preach. Deal?

Next, we can talk about cutting down the deflated, silver birthday balloon that’s been stuck in your tree for a year and half. One step at a time, right?

Sincerely,

The One Menacingly Staring at You through the Blinds of my House

Weight Control Problem V

Pants were a problem before, and now, my shirts are taking their shot. I’m pushing the point where XL isn’t big enough anymore. Could I really be an XXL? I have short arms though. I can barely scratch the back of my head. My arms just come to the end of my sleeves right now. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I look similar to Frankenstein’s monster. I’m a collection of body parts that shouldn’t be together. J-Lo’s ass. The T-Rex’s (the bad guy from Jurassic Park) arms. Malakili’s (Return of the Jedi) belly (*It’s a nice Star Wars reference. He’s the Rancor trainer). Regardless, I refuse to become an XXL. 

Tight fitting clothes frustrate me more than anything. I can remember when I was a kid growing out of pants but still wearing them because they were my pants. I’d walk around constantly yanking and pulling at my crotch and periodically yelling and waving my arms in the air as fast as possible to blow off the building frustration. The idea of tight-in-the-crotch fitting pants makes me want to explode just thinking about them. I’m one of the most laid back people you’d ever meet but you better not put some tight pants on me because I’ll FREAK out!

Today was the perfect storm. First, I have to mention that I wear gym clothes to work in the morning because I have swimming first period, so I change after first period to my teaching clothes. I only bring one shirt in the morning, so I only have one option. Well, this morning I grabbed a shirt that was too small. When I put it on, I could instantly feel I was going to rip it in multiple places; sadly, I’ve done this before. In fact, I’ve ripped a shirt, worn it home, forgotten about it, put it in the hamper, and worn it again. Pretty classy, huh? 

I put on the shirt only to find that it had French cuffs – with broken buttons (they couldn’t stay folded in half). The cuffs on my sleeves were 10 inches long and went about 4 inches passed my hands. I looked like a guy trying to pretend he lost his hands in the movies. If you’ve read my blog, you’ll be surprised to find that I’m actually quite fashionable and stylish. I know the whole not wanting to shower or brush my teeth points to the opposite, but alas, I care about the way I look. Back to the point, I rolled up my sleeves to the middle of my forearms creating two sweet, little tourniquets. I made it through most of the day controlling my anger and frustration. My shirt was slowly suffocating me and my arms were losing feeling; I literally had white spots all over my arms. When I reached the boiling point, luckily no one was in my room because I ripped the shirt off, stuffed it into a ball, punched it and threw it against the wall. 

I felt a little better but I still felt like I was being suffocated. Later, I learned that I was wearing the other swim coach’s undershirt (a large) the whole day! I was being freakin’ tag teamed. Undershirt shared the same grisly fate as normal shirt. BAM, into a wall. When I finally got that shirt off, I felt normal again. My anger subsided and the townspeople were safe.

By the way, the button up shirt made a bruise on my arm. I mean, seriously, does this happen to other people?

The History of "We are The Champions"

What the heck is “We are the Champions” by Queen about? Is it just a song about putting in the time, going through the trials and tribulations, becoming champions, and not having time for losers? I can’t imagine what could have happened inspired Freddie Mercury to write it. Here are couple of pictures of him:

Maybe he just won the best mustache award at the local biker bar. Maybe he just won a pie eating contest. Who knows? Since I don’t know the back story, I’ll make one up. 

The band was touring in England before they made it big time and stopped off at a small diner for tea and spotted dick (those are my go-to British food items). While polishing off the tip of the spotted dick, he noticed a flier for a beauty contest. Though they weren’t sure he could win, the band teamed together and gave Freddie a complete makeover, culminating in a new, Lloyd Christmas (from Dumb and Dumber) hairstyle complete with flowing locks in the back. The pageant was tough and very competitive; of course, he nailed the talent portion. When the awards were announced, the band was disappointed to hear that Freddie had not won the top overall prize but was ecstatic to learn that Freddy had won the coveted Most Teeth Award. Elated, the band partied all night, and in the morning still high from the win, he penned those brilliant words on a cocktail napkin from his bed.

And now you know.

Senator Stinky for 2011

I got home from a swim meet last night around 9:00, which is late for me because I usually go to sleep around 10:00. After 30 minutes or so of watching TV and hanging out with my wife, I started getting ready for bed. I found my jeans (Friday is jeans day!) in the dirty hamper and guess what? They were dirty. The question presented itself: were they stinky enough where I couldn’t stand to wear them? I wore some super smelly jeans with melted-turned-dried whip cream all over them the other day and withstood it – barely. In the end, stinky-ness beat laziness 51% to 49%. It was a close race and laziness put up a good fight, but good old Stinky just has more of an in-your-face campaign. 

I put them in the washer and went on to the worst five minutes of my day, every day – getting ready for bed. I hate it, so I brush my teeth as fast as I can, nearly poke my eyes getting my contacts out because I’m doing it so fast, and go into a full body flex, nearly straining every muscle in my body, to urinate with max power and pressure. 

After I finished those chores, I checked on my jeans – still washing. Oh yeah, it only takes 5 minutes for me to get ready for bed. Not wanting to get too comfortable, I sat up in bed and watched TV with my wife for a minute. That’s not an expression, a minute; I got up after one minute to check on the progress. That didn’t help but moving the washer knob over a little bit did! Do I really need 5 minutes of rinse? This exact process continued every minute until the knob was pointed to the end of the cycle. Success! I washed my pants in 12 minutes. I pulled them out and gave them a once over to see if there were any remaining suds. Diagnosis: negative. Into the dryer, they went. I could just grab them in the morning and be on my way.

I went to bed and got into a nice, deep sleep. <Chink> Heart rate increasing. Is someone trying to break in? <Chink> Sweat forming. Is it a serial killer trying to get in? <Chink> Anus apucker. I need to wake up Wife. She’ll protect me. <Chink> Adrenaline induced lucidity. Oh, I bet that’s the sound of the metal button on my jeans hitting the inside of the dryer as they tumble around. I got up to check and I was right. I got back in bed and closed my eyes, and all I could hear was the same noise. It would stop for 4 seconds or so then start up again, which I couldn’t take. I pulled the jeans out and hung them up. They’ll be dry in the morning I thought.

Well, I wore pants with a sopping wet, pelvis area all day. Wet enough where my underwear was wet too. I was nervous all day that someone would sit in a chair after me and feel the moisture of the watery butt print I left behind. 

I’m not sure what’s worse, but if having a cold, prune-y midsection isn’t worse than being stinky, it’s a close second. 

Complex Thoughts On Gender Roles

Gender equality is a weird thing to me. It seems like there are PC driven movements for giving men their own this and women their own that, yet other PC driven movements strive to tear down the walls that separate the sexes. It all seems silly to me.

Here’s the question that provoked this topic: why is the best acting Oscar separated by gender? One sex can do as good of a job as that the other, right? Most would agree that Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson are phenomenal actors. Why are they separated when it comes to awards? Why can’t they compete against each other? It’s not like power lifting where the strongest woman, due to her genetic makeup, can’t compete with the strongest man. Women don’t lack some acting gene that I’m unaware of, right? Acting is something both sexes can do well. 

Is it because men lack the nuance to play a woman and vice versa, so they must be separate? What if Martin Scorsese filmed a movie about George Washington starring Helen Mirren as the title role and everyone accepted her performance was the best by a woman? She did the best job of playing a man, so therefore, should be judged alongside others in similar roles, men. Maybe the category should be called Best Roll Played by a (Insert Man or Woman). However, that still doesn’t solve the problem. Ultimately, there is no reason for this separation. My theory is the Oscar people want to give out more awards for more TV time. These Hollywood types are desperate for attention, right? Well, if they want more TV time, they should give out a bunch of awards – awards to all actors who acted in a movie that particular year. “The Oscar for Best Marlon Wayans performance goes to Marlon Wayans in White Chicks.”

Here is the best solution: give out age group awards. Age group awards make way more sense. Didn’t Anna Paquin win an Oscar for best supporting actress when she was 11? That’s insane! She was up against Emma Thompson who was 34 at the time. Can you imagine people saying an 11 year old is better than you at your job? It would have to make you rethink every aspect of your life. 

Back to the age group point, if 11 year old Anna Paquin beats Jonathan Lipnicki (the kid from Jerry Maguire), you think, well, no shit. That’s completely reasonable. She did a way better job.

This just makes sense to me.

A-pug-alypse!

According to my father-in-law, America is about to go through even worse financial times than we are now. He’s a financial planner and knows quite a bit about the economy and so forth. Essentially, the debt America accrues will be so great that our whole economic system will buckle to an unsalvageable level. I’ve connected the dots and see what’s going on. Armageddon is upon us. Conquest, War, Famine, and Death will soon be riding their horses through the sky. I must start planning for the future – however desolate it may be. 

First, I need to get Lasik eye surgery. I can just imagine scurrying from my house of *corrugated metal to scavenge for my daily dose of acorns and pigeon bones like a common troll. While I’m out foraging, I notice all of the other Morlock-like sewer dwellers laughing and pointing at me. Much to my chagrin, I notice I put on my brown fingerless gloves and picked up the red polka doted bindle. That doesn't match!!! If I had better vision, this mistake wouldn’t happen. I will NEVER be the laughingstock to a bunch of Eloi eating, subterranean bastards!  

Next, I really need to start running. I figure when the streets are flooded with blood, I’ll need to be in shape to run away from cannibal marauders looking to eat my nose and various other body parts. Or vice versa, I’ll need to be in shape to run down the weak, so I can feed their noses to my dogs and wife. I’ll scream from the mountain tops as menacing as possible, “Listen and listen well. All of your noses shall sustain my pugs!”

I’ll also need an arsenal of weapons. My only weapon right now is a baseball bat. It’s aluminum though so I can’t even hammer long nails through the end of it like a true cave troll. Maybe I can duct tape some nails to it. I could also carry around a bag of rocks – rocks for throwing.

I’ll need to work on my percussion skills. There will probably be a lot of sitting around campfires. If I can play music on a Folgers can perhaps, I will be the hit of the tribe and they won’t want me to do stuff. It’ll be similar to being a celebrity now; I’ll be so revered that people will want to do work for me. They’ll say, “No, no. Please stay seated. I’ll go down to the quarry, boil drinking water for you, and wash your loin cloth. We need you nice and rested for the coffee can concert tonight. Tap-Dink-Tap is my favorite song!” I will humbly accept.

These are just some of the things I will need to do in anticipation for the End Days. These things seem hard though. Maybe I won’t do them. Maybe I’ll just sit in a chair on my lawn with a cold beer and watch the skies burn with the fire of a thousand suns. It’ll be quite a show.

* Corrugated metal: The wavy kind of metal used to make sheds and storage units that contain scores of dead, rotting bodies that burn in the hot summer sun. If this doesn’t make sense, read this.