we remember

Baker Company, with the 7th Marines, 1st Battalion in Iraq, to honor the victims
of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

GOD BLESS THE USA

SEMPER FI

tuesday rant - 3rd edition

Pretentious people.

Want to see me come unglued and start having uncontrollable eye twitches? Make me spend ANY amount of time with someone who either thinks or acts like they are better than anyone else because they went to a better school (or any school) or have a bigger house or a better job or they got to see Journey on tour and sat in the front row.

I don't believe I would ever get to the point of physical assault. I may consider it; there have been times in the past when I thought how nice it would be to feel their bones crush. But no, for me I've found the best way to deal with these people is to ensure their complete undoing.

How you ask? Simple. These people have one chink in their crappy armor. Themselves.

Instead of ignoring them or popping them in the temple like I want to, I pull them closer. Keep them talking. For these people every word out of their mouth is yet another dent in the hard exterior shell that covers their soft yellow underbelly. I've been known to keep doing this for months on end until I find a weak spot. Once this is located, I exploit the crap out of it to my complete and utter enjoyment.

Case in point:

Recently, I traveled on business where I was required to attend a dinner meeting with a guy who is ranked on page one of my pretentious log. Being from the south and specifically from Texas I was apparently well below his status level and he made no attempt to mask it. For me this caused a large set of crosshairs to appear on his forehead.

There were maybe 200 restaurants within a 10 mile radius of where we were located. Now, where would you take a backwoods guy from Texas if you really wanted to show him how big you were... hmmm... Sushi! Take him to eat Sushi and talk about how you just love to eat with chopsticks. That would be GREAT!

Wrong asshole. What this pretentious prick didn't realize is that I spent close to 3 years living in Japan. I've been there. I speak-a-da language.

I said nothing, even when he made the comment that he hoped I would enjoy it and not think it was bait. "I'll try anything" I said with a smile, thinking of how much fun this was going to be.

I sat in the restaurant listening to this prick talk endlessly about how much he enjoyed this particular place (a stereotypically bad example of a Japanese-like upscale restaurant). I fumbled with my chopsticks and stared at the menu like I was going to need a burger later.

Finally when the waiter appeared and this prick sat up to order... I asked in Japanese if the waiter spoke Japanese (he did- at least as well as I did) and I proceeded to order. I even ordered a drink for the idiot next to me (still in Japanese) which the waiter considered quite funny.

I occasionally think of the look on his pretentious little face at that moment. Hey, what’s that... looks like you have a chink in your armor right there...

the time Jimmy cut off my arms

Jim Beam and I used to be bro's. We used to hang out together and see how far we could push each other. He usually won, but after a couple of weeks I'd forgive and forget (mainly forget) and invite him back over for another round.

That is until the day he cut off my arms.

Like how most "I cut off my arms" stories begin, it happened when I went to a bachelor party.

By all accounts this was a very tame bachelor’s party at the house of a friend near Lubbock, Texas, as I recall there were no strippers, donkeys, cheerleaders or blow-up dolls. There may have been all of the above, but that would have been after Jimmy and I left (aka: passed out).

We were drinking Jim Beam mixed with coke, until we realized that was slowing us down so we started drinking it straight, over ice. After a bit we realized pouring it into a glass was stupid because we could just drink it right from the bottle and have an extra hand free to give everyone high fives and put in the best damn drinking music available, that being David Allen Coe; you don't have to call me darlin'... darlin'. This is after all the national anthem of almost any party in Texas.

As the night progressed I slowly started to realize that the guy sitting in front of me had grown a twin who was now sitting right beside him wearing the same clothes. Whenever these guys (or guy) talked I had trouble trying to figure out which one to look at. I noticed by closing one eye, the twin would disappear and if I held my head to the side it was much better. I was certain nobody noticed the head tilt or drool.

Apparently, I may have exceeded the known limits of consumption because that is the last fuzzy memory I have of that night.

I woke up in a fog the next morning on a couch and start looking around the room when I realized I didn't have any arms. Let me repeat that, MY DAMN ARMS WERE GONE! SOMEONE HAD CUT OFF MY SON-OF-A-BITCH-N ARMS! I couldn't feel them. I couldn't move them. I couldn't see them. Crap! I laid there for a bit trying to recall the previous night and at what point my arms got cut off. Maybe one of the twins would know.

Now as anyone who wakes up on a couch with no arms knows, the logical thing is to attempt a full gainer off the couch onto the floor - tada. After I did a face plant on the floor I found my lifeless, completely useless and numb appendages hanging there where they were supposed to be all along. I had passed out with my arms up over and behind my head.

Jimmy Bean, you sir are the devils water.

I'm sticking with Tequila from now on. I'd like to introduce you to my new friend Jose. Jose, say a few words to the kind readers. "Helo, my name iz Jose. I hear to maka 'da dad-da-dude thinks he maybe ok when in truth he will be dancing nakid on 'da tables and how you say... 'dinking he superman. ok. I go now".

Next round on me.

ass logo placement

There are some things I never thought I'd do. Never thought I would SCUBA dive. Check, did that. Never thought I would allow someone within 2 feet of the jewels with a scalpel. Check, did that. Never thought I would start a blog. Check, did that. Never thought I would stop drinking beer... ha, yea right.

I now add to that list - I never thought I would try to find a picture of a football players ass and put words on it. Today is indeed a red letter day.

Saw this story today:

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Team dumps logo near buttocks after 70-0 loss

BOISE, Idaho - The Idaho Vandals football team is dumping the letter "I" from the buttocks region of players' new pants following a season-opening 70-0 loss to the Arizona Wildcats.

Rob Spears, the school's athletic director, says nobody realized just how the logo placed in the center of the players' behinds would look before they tried their pants on.
Spears told the Idaho Statesman the sewn-in University of Idaho logo has since been hastily removed by equipment managers after complaints

-----------------------------------------------------

I've posted before that I don't know much about football. This is painfully apparent now. Since when did football players start putting logo's on their ass? It's not even the logo of the other team (which I could understand), it's their OWN logo - on their ASS.

Seriously? Can you buy ass logo placement for the Super Bowl? If so, I'd love to see Hertz pitch for that deal.

Sunday 9/07/08:

By request I found an image of the actual ass logo. I submit it here and swear this is the last time I go on a hunt for images of football ass logos.

tuesday rant - 2nd edition

Ok. It's actually Wednesday... but since this was a holiday weekend I get a gimme. I was having too much fun this weekend trying to see if a jet ski could actually fly to think about writing a post.

Since I missed a day, I had an extra day for crap to build up. So this week’s rant is in two parts.

Before I get my rant on, I should make myself clear. I really don't care who you vote for. Much like religion and state sponsored torture; politics is a subject I avoid when at all possible.

Either way it goes in November, I'll still share a beer with you after it's all over. We can sit and bitch about whomever gets elected, it'll be great!

Today's Rant #1:
We had a saying in the Marines; Respect the rank, even if you don't respect the person. You don't have to agree with them, you don't have to like them, you don't have to hang out with them until the wee hours of the morning and make sure they don't piss on themselves in the front yard - but you do have to respect the rank.

The lack of respect for our president is amazing. I'm not going to argue that he didn't help matters much, but again - he is the president. I have and I will fight for anyone's right to free speech. Disagree with his politics - no problem. Think he couldn't give a speech at a 1st grade award ceremony - no problem. Think the buck stops with him for the bullshit in Iraq because there wasn't a post invasion plan - agreed.

But that doesn't mean you can disrespect the office.

Tuesday night he spoke live to the RNC. NBC tape delayed his speech by about a minute. Now since it was live he was reacting to the audience but in the tape delay they didn't include the sound of the audience. In his speech he paused when the audience was clapping but with the NBC feed it simply made him look like a blithering idiot pausing and smiling for no reason.

I think we can agree that he doesn't need help in this area.

I checked the other networks and they were including the sound of the audience. I'd like to think this was simply a technical error on the part of NBC, but my gut says it's just another example of disrespect for the office and that makes me want to blow the dust off my scope.

Today's Rant #2:
Finally someone has said it. Every time a series of things happen; be it weather, earthquakes, heat, cold, mudslides, forest fires, or an increase in the number of road kills I hear people saying it's global warming and "it's never been this bad". Guess what, if you look at something long enough you start seeing things that aren't there. It has been this bad, it's just that people weren't stacked up like cordwood creating a target-rich environment and CNN wasn't around to report on it for hours on end.

Do you find it odd that once something happens all you hear about for the next few weeks are reports related to the original event? Coincidence? Bad things come in 3's? No, the reason you hear about it and think it's suddenly a trend and then the reports fade into the next big thing is due to the media in their mad attempt to report something... anything and our innate desire to crave it.

Remember a month or so ago when all we talked about was the price of gas? You couldn't escape it. People were going nuts trading in their SUV's for anything that got more than 200 mpg. Where is that now? Has the energy crisis suddenly vanished? Nope, it's still there and has been there for at least 30 years and will remain until we find a way to get my ass to work by fueling up with my damn water hose. The only thing that happened was the gas prices came down (which still screws with my head) and we needed something else to fuel our craving for "It's never been this bad before".