Ouch...

All I wanted to do was make some dinner. Some easy, simple, not from a box dinner.

That also involved using a knife.

OWIE OWIE OWIE OWIE OWIE OWIE

And then I cut the tip off my finger. It’s my favorite finger.

I point with it.

It’s the finger I use to hold down the string when tying knots.

Being my left hand (I’m right handed) I also use it in certain situations when I’m unsure whether I’ll get it back or not.

It’s my nose-pickin’ finger too. Just sayin’.

On that note, using my right index finger feels a bit like what I’d imagine driving a car in England might feel like. Familiar territory, but upside down.

It also throbs. In a bad way.

It’s goddamn pizza night tomorrow.

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

Today my wife reminded me for the 923^rd time since June 6^th that I need to write our cancellation notice to Terminix.

Terminix bought the company we actually contracted with to come out regularly and spray around the house. That’s right. Six goddamn weeks after we signed our contract we get a note in the mail saying, “Congratulations! You are about to get completely screwed!”

Apparently when you sign up with Terminix, it’s forever. The contract is good for only a year, but unless you say in writing you don’t want them stopping by anymore, they’ll continue to charge you whether they show up or not.

As it happens, they actually served as promised over the remaining year. Notifying us in advance as to when they were scheduled to come, contact info if we needed them to come inside, showing up on time. At their last service the dude came by and it was just beginning to rain. He was like “Dude. If I spray today it will be totally useless. How ‘bout I come by next week?” Whoa. That was unexpected.

Don’t care. I didn’t sign a contract with Terminix. I didn’t want Terminix. So now I’m done with Terminix.

I know what yer thinkin’, “So, you got what you paid for, got good customer service and you don’t like it?” Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Here’s why. I’m 100% convinced that for a fraction of the cost I can treat my own house and yard for bugs.

And there’s the infinite contract extension thing. Now bug companies aren’t the only one to do this, but to have to actually write a letter? I can’t just call or email?

My wife had July 4-5 off for the holiday. She cleaned the house from top to bottom. And now I can’t find a damn thing. I wrote and printed and signed the stupid letter. Then I searched and searched for an envelope. Couldn’t find one. I had to text her at work:

Me: “Ok, I wrote the letter. Can’t find the envelopes.”

Her: “Should be a box on my desk”

Me: “The only box on your desk says Puffs Plus.”

Her: “On the desktop there should be the envelopes, if not look in the built in for a new box”

Me: “Pool time”

So I found a new box of envelopes. Then I realized it may have been about 15 years since I’ve mailed a letter. I had no idea what postage costs nowadays. She has sheets of stamps in a folder, some say 44 cents. Some say 45 cents. Some say 1 cent. So I asked the Google. USPS said it was going to cost 86 cents to mail this. And I was like, “No it’s not.”  So I searched some more.

Found this website handy. http://www.degraeve.com/current-stamp-price.php

It’s 45 cents.

By the time I got the *!%^#! letter out to the mailbox the mailman had already come.

And we have a spider infestation. Tiny ones. Weird white striped jumping ones. Their white puff ball egg sacs are under all the furniture and undoubtedly behind things I can’t get behind.

"Hi! Wanna see my parlor?"

I have no idea what I’m doing.

UPDATE:

Just before going on vacation to visit the grandparents last week the Terminix robot called to say they were coming out to spray as scheduled. I called them and calmly explained I had written a letter and blogged about it to terminate our contract. So she terminated it. I was supposed to get a call the next day to confirm. Didn't. I called them again. They said, "Yeah. Says right here. Cancelled." And then while on vacation they came anyway. I had to call them back. Guess what?! They were 'sorry'. At least they credited me back and I didn't have to threaten them with anything homeland security would water board me for.

On The Art of Blogging and Writing in General

Some days I’m just not really into it. Haven’t been for a while. It’s not that stupid, funny, or just plain silly things stop happening around me. I just haven’t had the creative spark to write about it.

And for those people who say, “I just don’t have the time” I have this to say:

Bullshit.

You have the time. I have the time. Everybody has the time. We just don’t have that spark. Some people call it “ambition” or “motivation” (very similar if you think about it). Some people have those things all the time. Unfortunately. Too many of them aren’t any good at it. I’m still a tad jealous, though.

Experienced writers will tell you, in their short essays (when all compiled together are usually ingeniously titled How To Write or The Art of Writing and even So You Want to be a Writer?) just write. Write like you don’t care. Write when you don’t want to. Write write write write write.

Right?

For us normal folks that got the writing bug, but not the right stuff, writing when uninspired is kinda like working. I suppose if it was my job, I’d write all the time. As it stands, I don’t even have a job right now. People (Mom) might say, “So what’s your excuse? You write well. You have people that like your writing. With a little effort you might even sell something!”

Well, I’ve tried the writer’s mantra (write write write) and I gotta tell ya. When I’m not inspired, it comes out as drivel. I’ve got a dozen half-written half-hearted essays (that’s what these are ya know, essays, not articles. People get paid for articles. I think. Hell, I don’t know) that I really don’t like. As it stands, this one might be headed that way.

I've had some pretty neat ideas on how to work my blog, but I don’t really have the… what’s the word?... Not those other words I’ve been using…. But something that means “HUMPH!” like when you pick up something really heavy and are really proud of it. I don’t have that to really get into blogging like so many of the bloggers I’ve come to respect and admire. Too many of the bloggers I’ve enjoyed seemed to have succumbed to the same malady. They lost their HUMPH.

Humph.

Maybe I should have entitled this post the Humph Post.  Sounds too much like the HuffPo. So never mind.

Time for beer #2.

It’s a New Belgium Trippel. In case you were wondering. My first was one of my homebrews.  A standard brown porter I tend to drink too much of. Pace yourself, Eric!

Now there’s a mantra I should really pay attention to.

I’m not advertising this post as usual. I’m just gonna let it hang out there. Kinda like naked shopping. You seen this? Naked people shopping for free groceries. If it happened in Houston, you might have had an opportunity to see my hairy ass pushing  $276 in beer to the registers.

And yes, as reported on the HuffPo.

Dude, there's more beer over here!

"Is that a TOWER of Nutella? Hon, you OWE me for the last time we were naked in public.

What the HELL is THAT!?

Look at me lookin' at you lookin' at me. Freak.

Scientist A: "What the freakin' hell is that?!"

Scientist B: "A frog."

SA: "Yeah, but what kinda frog? I mean, that sucker's huge!"

SB: "Hmm. A giant frog then."

SA: "Kinda has an odd complexion wouldn't you say."

SB: "Yeah... like a melted candle. Waxy."

SA: "Where's it live?"

SB: "Found it living in the treetops, believe it or not. With the monkeys."

SA: "I'm gonna call it Phyllomedusa bicolor."

SB: "Yeah, you go with that. I'm gonna call what it is. We'll see what people end up using."

What it is.

Blogging by Candlelight

This is how Abraham Lincoln did it.

Just like they did it in 1789.

Why 1789? Because:

 1.  They didn’t have electricity.

 2.  For the U.S. it was a pretty big year! Yeah hell it was. And you people don’t have a single clue.

 3.  I’m gonna tell ya.

For those who live in or near the U.S.  ya’ll know that July 4th is a pretty big day. The former 13 British (English… United Kingdomish… Oh come on, who are you people?) Colonies declared their independence in 1776 on that particular day. We fought a war. We won.

I say “we” as in I’m member. Currently. Not that I was involved.

But what happened after that? I mean, we didn’t elect our first president until 1789. What’s up with that? George Washington was a general. A freakin’ war hero. He rode a horse made of crystal. Seriously, why did it take so long to elect a president? The war didn’t take that long to win… did it?

No. The war was over in 1783. Please Google Treaty of Paris.

So what the hell? Who was in charge during those seven years? Who was charge for the six after that!?

Meh… you can read history and learn about the “President of Delaware” and all that crap, but it really amounts to this: NOBODY.

Would you believe we had eight Presidents of the United States BEFORE George Washington? That’s right. Why don’t they teach THAT in school? Ha!… Why I homeschool my kids.

Let’s move on. GW was elected and took office as the first President of the U.S. under the Constitution (notice how I capitalized that? Yeah, I’m a patriot) in 1789. Before that we had the Articles of Confederation. Holy CRAP. Is this post educational or what. Crapsnacks.

So. 1789. No electricity. No Federal Union. No President (elected January… didn’t take office until April… no e-mail, no… well.. mail, seriously Ben was still working on it) until about mid-year.

Would you look at all the links in this post? Shit. Seriously, if I didn’t know better I’d say this was some sort of educational essay or something.

Hell, I’m writing in the dark. Drinking… something, you saw the pic, and I’m sure this is how Abraham Lincoln got his start. I’m so ON TO SOMETHING HERE.

Thank you Duracell or Energizer or whoever invented battery backups. Seriously. That thing has been beeping for hours. That’s what keeps me on the internet! Oh! And thank you AT&T for selling me access through the good old fashioned telephone lines. And…

HELLS YEAH! The juice came back on at 9:41 pm. EXACTLY 15 minutes before estimated. You’ve got the Scotty scenario down pat. See quotes below:

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Look, Mr. Scott, I'd love to explain everything to you, but the Captain wants this spectrographic analysis done by 1300 hours.

[La Forge goes back to work; Scotty follows slowly]

Scotty: Do you mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Yeah, well, I told the Captain I'd have this analysis done in an hour.

Scotty: How long will it really take?

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: An hour!

Scotty: Oh, you didn't tell him how long it would “really” take, did ya?

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.

Scotty: Oh, laddie. You've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.

I have a lotta respect for the Scotty Philosophy.

Where was I going with this?

…

Meh. I take it as a token of awesomeness that I can tie power out-ages, George Washington, Ben Franklin and Star Trek all together in one post.

Well!? What do you think? Was GW awesome? Ben? John Hanson?

Yeah…me too. 

"I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I drink IT ALL!" - John Hanson

UPDATE: We lost power again at 11:30pm. Thank you Center Point.

Dear Cheerios: I Am So Disappointed With You

What. The. Hell.

You've been feeding America for what, like a hundred years?* And in all that time you’ve made the simple awesome that is Cheerios.

Then you introduced the “honey of an O”. I was ok with that, actually. Honey Nut Cheerios are pretty good.

And decades went by. You continued to make good food. I continued to eat it.

So. What happened? I’ll admit that I don’t know your company all that well, but what I’m imagining here is a Howard E. Butt or Sam Walton scenario. The old guy dies… and then a new hip young crew takes over and BAM shit goes down.

Cheerios don’t do just wholesome and healthy anymore! Aw hell NO!

I seriously thought your business plan was flawed with the frosted stuff. But those seemed to have disappeared. I hope. They were terrible.

And then it happened.

Suddenly you got all:

Yogurt Bursty

Fruity

Oat Clustery

Banana Nutty (WHAT was up with this one?)

Chocolate. Seriously. You went chocolate on us? My kids will NEVER be introduced to these. It was here that I had determined you people didn’t give a flying F*** about kids anymore. Were you totally bummed about losing market share to Cocoa Puffs, Pebbles and Krispies? Seriously?

Cinnamon Burst. This one made me scratch my head. Didn’t you do an Apple Jacks kind like 25 years ago? So this one is just Cinnamon? Right.

But now. Now. NOW. I’m totally sure the General is dead. You know… General Mills? He died and now the Cheerios people are like, “It was about time. We’ve been wanting to corrupt Cheerios for decades. And today is the day! Children will beg, yes beg their parents for Cheerios! And their parents will think ‘well, how-di-do. It’s Cheerios so they must be good. Hey look! This one says multi-grain’. AND THEY WILL BUY THE SHIT OUT OF IT! Bwah ha ha HA HA HA!”

I confess, I may have exaggerated on the bwah ha-ing.

Check this out. It’s picture time.

They're new. Sorry... NEW!

That’s right. Peanut Butter Cheerios and (kick me in the nuts) Dulce de Leche Cheerios. They have caramel now.

Hey kids! Don’t have enough opportunity to fatten yourself up? Your teeth too white and strong? Well, you wanna stay healthy right? Why not have the best of BOTH worlds! That’s right! Step right up and have yourself a bowl of Cheerios! A couple ounces of this with a drop or two of milk are an important part of a complete breakfast.**

Not sure… have I come across as bitter, resentful and maybe a bit critical? No? Hmf.

*72

**Yes, a complete breakfast without this shit would still be a complete breakfast. Have you seen the serving size? ¾ cup. That’s it. With a ½ cup of skim milk. Hell, my 5 year old gets more nutrition eating her own snot.

Hello Kitty is EVERYWHERE

A stripped AR-15... and yes, it's real.

She is! 

Check it out.

What little angel wouldn't want one?

Guess which parade he's been to.

She’s on a Ferrari! She’s on wedding dresses, car exhaust pipes, chainsaws and Darth Vader. She’s even on vibrators. (Sorry ladies, I’ve heard you like to use clever euphemisms for these things. Like “plastic boy-friend”, “personal massager”, and “glass of wine”.)

Told ya.

She’s missing in at least one area.

Helicopters.

I’ve checked.

Today on the way home from changing a tire in a random shopping center in Sugar Land, TX the girls were talking about Hello Kitty. They yammered on and on about Hello Kitty. They pretended she was running alongside us. They pretended she was riding on the roof and could hear her walking around.

Zoey: “Daddy? Do you like Hello Kitty?”

Me: “Sure.”

Zoey: “What kind of Hello Kitty do you like?”

Me: “Hello Kitty Helicopter!”

Zoey: “Really? Why?”

Me: “Helicopters are cool! Haven’t you ever seen Airwolf?”

Zoey: “Airplanes are better.”

Me: “Oh really. Why is that?”

Zoey: “Airplanes have bathrooms.”

Me: “I can’t argue with that.”

She wins this round.